If We Hadn't Died
by smilinginthewind
Summary: A series of one shots on alternative and different kilas/steferine scenes. CHAPTER 17 NOW UP! Steferine: "I'm insane." He refrains from saying. The words hover above his mouth, an impending reality sentence waiting to happen... Please tell me any suggestions! My stories, don't copy please!
1. Chapter 1

**Hi! I've decided to do a series of one-shots on alternate Kilas scenes from season 5 after I re-watched the episodes, and wandered where it would have gone if something went differently. I'm just trying something out, and I don't know how many chapters there will be yet. Please review!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own tvd or the characters, they belong to Julie Plec and L.J Smith.**

Silas hopped up the stairs to the Boarding House, and quietly made his way into Damon's bedroom. He laughed silently at how easy it was to infiltrate Damon's mind, and walked over to the open door of Damon's au suite door, hoping that Katherine would come with him without a fight.

It was a pity she was the one who had been cured. He had heard such intriging stories of her, the doppelgänger, hunted by Klaus, quite the manipulative, selfish bitch, but interesting to him all the same. Because no-one became like that without a tragic backstory, one that would haunt them forever.

He would know.

He rapped on the side of the door and stepped into view. Katherine looked up from shaving her arm in alarm, then instantly relaxed when she saw him, thinking he was Stefan, putting away her razor and smirking at him. He himself was quite shocked by her appearance. The immortality elixir had worked, she looked exactly like Amara, right down to the almond shape and size of her doe eyes, apart from her curly hair piled on top of her head.

He quickly covered his astonishment by leaning on the side of the door, crossing his arms and smirking right back.

"Why are you in my brother's bathtub?" he asked, still smiling.

Katherine leaned further back into her bubbly bath. "Why aren't you?"

"I will say that's a tempting offer." he approached her, and sat on the edge of the bath next to her. He liked her, she knew how to have a good time. He almost regretted having to kill her.

"Mmm, he flirts. I like Elena-less Stefan." Katherine grinned widely, but it didn't hide the flickering suspicion in her eyes. She knew something was wrong. He had to step up his game.

"You know, human looks better on you than I would've guessed, Katherine." he leaned down so he was mere inches from her face.

"I think you just accidentally gave me a compliment." Katherine said, the disbelief evident in her voice.

"No, I mean it. You, sitting here all weak and vulnerable. It works." Silas reached out and cradled her cheek, hoping it would do the trick. Her eyes flickered from his face to his hand, before she sat up slowly and inched towards his face, gripping the bath tub with one hand. He reached down to grab her neck and haul her out of the tub when he just... froze. He looked into her eyes, and really, really saw her. He could _see_ her, the person she was so long ago, and the person she had become, each layer of her personality, the reasons behind her evolution, and who she_ really _was. Not the stories about her, the fake, selfish persona, but a fragile girl who craved love, but pushed it away time and time again because of the people she had lost and the ever-present fear and trauma of it happening again. Every single one of her emotions flitting in front of his eyes, exposing her whole life, the way she saw and experianced it, in a single moment.

And it was beautiful.

Somehow he couldn't do it. Not now, at least. But Amara was worth anything, no matter the cost so he could do it. For her. But he didn't have to enjoy it.

So instead of kidnapping her, he found himself kissing her, and the world seemed to melt away. He convinced himself it was Amara, but it was _better_, when concentrating on Katherine. He leaned forward, practically in the tub as they continued kissing passionately, as he enjoyed every second of the heat that filled him everytime his lips touched hers. She pulled back to breathe, and started undoing the buttons to his shirt as he kicked off his shoes. Within moments, they were both the tub, getting soaked, and the water was splashing everywhere. Damon was storming up the stairs, closely followed by Jeremy, and barged into his room. He had found out Silas' true identity from Jeremy, and was on the way to try to kill him unsuccessfully. Silas jumped off Katherine as she giggled at the look on Damon's face. He clearly hadn't been expecting this.

"Hello, brother." Silas smirked, causing Katherine to snigger again.

"Wha- my-my bathtub! You two are disgusting! Go to your own tub! You've ruined my bath time for me!" Damon sputtered out. He had instantly dismissed the idea of Silas escaping, because he thought only Stefan would sleep with Katherine for revenge against him and Elena, since Silas had a girlfriend. He and Jeremy looked revolted, and Jeremy just turned and walked out of the door, now also looking shocked.

"What, you mean now?" asked Silas innocently, placing one hand on each side of the tub and preparing to get up. Katherine had sunk further down into the bubbles, smiling mischeviously, her feet prodding his chest.

"No! No," Damon threw his hands out and closed his eyes in disgust. "Just, get out before I kill you." he grumbled, marching out the room, muttering angrily.

"Well," Katherine leaned towards him and pecked him on the lips. "That was amusing wasn't it?"

He laughed. It definetly had been. "Come on, I really wouldn't underestimate Damon on his threats." Silas got out of the tub, grabbed a towel and wrapped it around his hips, before tossing a robe to Katherine, who was just getting out too. He took her hand, and went up to Stefan's room, ignoring Damon's evil stare and kissed her again, removing her robe in one swift motion. He wondered if he could ever do it, kill a unique soul such as her.

Either way, now was not the time to be gaining a conscience.

But he'd done it anyway.

**Thank you for reading, and please tell me if you have any suggestions! :-)**


	2. Chapter 2

**5x03 alternate scene: If Qetsiyah hadn't performed the spell on Stefan to remove Silas' mental powers.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own tvd or the characters, they belong to Julie Plec and L.J Smith.**

"Sorry to sound like a broken record, but, I like to the identity of my kidnappers." Katherine snapped as Nadia dragged her out of the bushes. "Who are you? And, what do you want?"

Nadia stopped and turned to her. "Ask me again, and I'll sew your mouth shut." she snapped ferosiously.

They both turned around to find Silas leaning against Nadia's car, smirking in obvious amusement at them.

Katherine suddenly felt exhausted; another enemy after her-again. What was it about her? Whatever it was he wanted, she wouldn't go down without a fight, she was sure of that.

"Silas, of course it's you." she spat at him, shifting away as far as possible away from them, without breaking her arm from Nadia's tight grip. Silas seemed undettered by her venomous tone, and seemed to be ignoring her, turning his attention instead to Nadia.

"What are you doing here?" Nadia asked, sounding confused.

"GPS Tracker!" Silas announced proudly, picking it up and showing them, clearly pleased with himself. "It's even better than a locator spell," he flipped the GPS over in his hand, then tossed it carelessly to the ground, standing up and stepping towards them.

"Thank you, for, working so quickly, Nadia." Silas added sarcastically, now only about a few feet away from them.

"I'm not ready to hand her over yet." Nadia replied, pulling Katherine behind her.

"Ah, that's right. Your fascinating unfinished business that I don't care about." Silas sighed in a bored tone.

"Get out of my head." Nadia said and stepped towards him, so they were inches apart.

"What are you two talking about?" Katherine asked, feeling stupid, and mildly annoyed that she was left out of the loop.

Silas ignored her again, and said to Nadia, "Let go of her arm." Katherine could _feel _the power radiating off him, pushing at Nadia as she complied, begrudgingly. She instinctively knew trying to run wouldn't work. It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up on end, and she felt truly afraid. Klaus hadn't been this bad. She could outrun, outwit and outsmart him anyday, but if Silas could compel anyone and everyone as she had been told, then she had no-one left to trust, apart from maybe Jeremy, who would gladly watch her die.

"Now I want you to pull out your gun. And aim it at your heart." he instructed. Katherine's eyes flickered to the vampire as she very reluctantly and slowly, removed the gun from it's holster and brought it up to her chest. She wore a steely mask, no fear, no emotion was written on her face.

And Katherine kind of respected her for that. It reminded her of herself. She briefly wondered why he didn't order Nadia to take off her sunlight protection instead of knocking herself out, but then rationalised that maybe he didn't have time, or he needed her for something else.

"Good," he remarked, his face also emotionless. Katherine would have thought he would have looked smug over the power he had over them, but he seemed... sad. He clearly hadn't wanted this life to go this way, he couldn't have seen it coming. Alone in a cave for two millenia really didn't help him either, it had made him bitter and hateful, as it would anyone.

So Katherine pitied him, aswell as feared him, but was she going to go down with him? Become a sacrifical lamb for him to be with his love, whilst she ended up alone in a supernatural purgatory?

Hell, no.

"Now, pull, the trigger." his voice broke her out of her thoughts. He glanced at Katherine in confusion as he spoke to Nadia. Katherine blinked at him, then remembered with a fearful jolt that he could read people's minds, and had probably heard everything she had just thought about him.

The explosion from the gun made Katherine jump back in surprise, although she knew it would happen. It made her ears ring and she winced in pity for Nadia, who had crumpled to the ground unconcious, the gun spinning away from her. A large, shockingly vivid, red stain was rapidly spreading across the front of her shirt, ruining it.

"Get in the car." Silas told her, grabbing her hand, opening the passenger door next to the driver's seat and throwing her in, despite her heavy resistance, kicking and clawing at him. He got in next to her, turned to her, and said, "Don't try to escape, don't tell anyone where you are or get help and do exactly what I tell you."

Now Katherine could feel his power on _her_, pressing on her brain, forcing her to obey. It was a lot more powerful than vampire compulsion, all right. She had never felt that way under normal compulsion. She huffed in annoyance, and leaned away from him and towards the window. She thought she saw him smirk at her out of the corner of her eye, before starting up the car and driving down the road.

"Why do you want me anyway?" she asked, after a few moments of thick, tense silence, curiousity overriding fear.

"That's for me to know, and you to find out." Silas smiled smugly.

Katherine sighed in annoyance. Why couldn't the Big Bads just explain themselves for a change? It was getting rather boring.

"I hate you." she turned away from him, conveying as much disgust into her voice as possible. She didn't expect him to be fazed by her comment, but he looked rather stung and hurt. He blinked several times and gritted his teeth, quickly smoothing out the emotions on his face before Katherine could be completely sure of their existence in the first place.

She wondered if it was because she sounded like Amara, or it was because of her herself.

Or maybe, he was just like other people, who were insulted by comments like that. She felt a twinge of pity for him. He had been human once before, long ago. They all had been. And, in a way, it shaped them, who they were in the long run, their feelings, their experiances in particular.

She thought if that was the case, no wonder he was who he was today.

**Thanks for reading!**


	3. Chapter 3

**So, this is just me trying something really old and really good out, please let me know if you like it!  
Disclaimer: Julie Plec and L.J Smith own the vampire diaries, not me.  
**_**Beautiful Insanity.**_

Water slices through his lungs in merciless torrents. Bursting his blood vessels and losing him in a murky depth of despair every time a vital organ falls apart, exploding through his body. It turns the stale, foul-tasting water around him into a churning mass of red and he falls into a deep, inky sleep that almost seems peaceful, as his internal combustions heal.

And then he wakes up. It's become a pattern now, his resurrection like one vicious circuit to hell.

Sometimes Stefan thinks even hell would be better than this.

A never ending drowning, the never ending drowning, lost in the drowning. The water that delivers a crushing and painful but temporary death that drags and tosses him around like a limp rag doll. All he can do is choke and pound emptily on the safe door, hoping someone out there would stop what they were doing, think about him, put the pieces together and come rushing to his aid.

But no-one comes.

No-one stops for a moment to think about him.

No-one puts the pieces together. Yet somehow he keeps on hoping because hope is the only thing he has left. That the two people most important to him would have-must have noticed that he was gone. That they would stop going on dates, kissing, other... things, that burned his mind every time he thought about them so much that he is surprised the red, ice-cold water wouldn't start bubbling and boiling with rage, to help him.

His _brother_ and the _love of his life._ Together. The worst thing that had ever happened to him.  
He starts to realise he must have overlooked so many things, been fooled from the beginning into thinking she would be his forever. He feels like laughing because of course this would happen to him. In fact, he probably deserved it. He just hates the thought of another person touching her the way he had once been allowed to. The brother part seems like the universe's way of playing a cruel trick on him.

Of course this was what his life had drained away to be.

Of _course_ Damon got her. His true love. He lets a little anger trickle in despite being happy for him. Because it wasn't fair that Damon got the girl, whilst all he got was a tidal wave of water slammed into his body every single minute of every single agonising day for the past-what, three months, now?  
A safe, that was meant for another man, dooming him for what feels like eternity and all Stefan wishes for is it to stop. To end all his suffering, to take it all away because his entire existence is not worth the pain he has to endure, the battles he fights, but loses a little more every day. Because he's lost his love and he's losing his mind, dying, ravenous and all alone, but most of powerless.

Powerless against the man who wears his face. Well, it was Silas' face, if one was being tedious, the face that Stefan wore. Everything he ever has been and ever will be all boils down to the person he's really been all along.

A copy.

A shadow of the most powerful supernatural being who ever lived. He briefly feels a flash of pride quickly swallowed by a hateful vengeance to destroy Silas if he ever escapes. But vampires don't have a time limit and forever is a long time.  
He wants to shout and scream at the world for standing by whilst this happened to him. For letting him suffer in a midst of terror and ferocious hunger.A ferocious hunger that was driving him out of control and into a desperate fever. The ripper was waiting, just hidden under the surface, the floods of water doing nothing for his insatiable thirst for blood.  
He drifts from his bubble of torture, the water washing him away on a tide of pain.  
~X~  
Jolting. Thumping. Faint noises and shakes cause Stefan to snap out of his slumber to an immense shaking, that makes his teeth chatter. He has no idea how long he's been 'dead', but he's not feeling exactly grateful for whatever had yanked him out of his snooze away from his personal hell hole. The jolting increases, and then the safe is turned upright, sluggishly dragged upwards through the sediment that had probably been deposited onto it, and pulled up through the water. Stefan's heart hammers in excitement, his hopes soaring. Finally! Freedom. Damon and Elena had found him! His whole body itches with the urge to escape, to feed until he could no longer breathe, or remember his own name. He can tell when the safe breaks the surface when the water starts trickling slowly out of it, and sunlight pierces the tiny sliver in the crease of the safe door, dazzling, and frightening at the same time. The safe slams to the ground, jarring his weakened bones, but Stefan couldn't care less.

He was free.

He coughs and spits all the remaining water out of his lungs, eager to escape the feel of it and wincing as it stings his mouth with a bitter, salty taste, and drags in his first breath in three months. He marvels at life, how something so simple as breathing for a vampire could be missed so easily and so much. He never realised how much he had missed air until now. Gathering his strength, he prepares to pound the door again, but someone beats him to it. With a loud clunking sound, the lock is slowly turned, opening with every twist. And Stefan grows more agitated, yet excited every second it takes to open.

Then it does.

And the blinding sunlight burns his skin, and he starts roasting like a chicken. Silas must have stolen his daylight ring. But he doesn't mind. What he had just gone through was so much worse. He doesn't mind death anymore.

But someone else does, and someone else grabs his left hand and slides the cool, familiar ring of protection onto his middle finger. He starts to slowly heal over, slower than he'd like to admit, but feeling cool and protected once more, and he squints up at his saviour gratefully as his eyesight adjusts, and who he sees comes as a great surprise, overpowering the crushing disappointment he feels, because it wasn't who it _should_ have been.  
"Having fun?" his doppelganger smirks.  
**~X~**  
Stefan rips into a woman's neck, guzzling the addictive, warm liquid greedily until the blood runs in steady streams down her once clean, white shirt and down his stained and water-logged ruined one. It drizzles down her neck in lazy hot torrents, and he relishes in the feel of it as it smears all over his hands as he messily grasps at her back and neck. He doesn't even remember how he got here, but he doesn't care. All he sees humans as right now are walking snacks. Surprisingly, he's only killed two people in the few hours he started living again. He wonders if it's the liquidy substance of the delicious hot red stuff he craves, or that he finally has maintained some control. Probably the former. He lets the woman go, gasping for air and blood trickling down his chin. Showing some restraint, he heals her with his blood, and compels her away. He turns to Silas, who is sitting on the couch opposite him, looking both amused and disgusted. An odd look on his own face he had never seen before. He had been helping Stefan, getting him away if it got too messy, keeping an eye on him. He even took him to his apartment, to keep his snacks at a minimum. And Stefan can't help but wonder why the man who essentially killed him, changed his mind and came back to save him.

"Why come back?" he asks the question that had been nagging at him beneath his raging thirst. "Why not leave me there? No-one would have suspected you and you could have stolen my life. So why?"

Silas smirks at him. "Because you need someone who won't betray you," A personal jab at his life. "And I need a wingman."  
"Aah, of course. All the Big Bads want me. Is it my looks, or...?" Stefan carelessly licks the remaining blood off his fingers, causing Silas to laugh.  
"No, I think we like the beauty of destroying such a fragile thing."

"I'm not so fragile anymore," Stefan replies tersely. "I made it out of my life alive."

Silas just smiles sadly, a flicker of how old he really was shooting briefly in his eyes. "No my shadow self, you didn't come out alive. You came out just like me."  
**~X~**  
He stands by the Boarding House, a still statue. He can see figures flitting in front of the bottom half. Jeremy and Damon. Most likely bickering, or ignoring each other. Funny. Damon never stopped hating Elena's brother long enough to pick up the phone and check up on his own one. He feels a throb of disgust and hatred pound at his heart. Damon won't get off easy this time ruining his life. He picks up a large stone the size of his fist, hefting it easily in his hand. Without thinking twice, he thrusts all his power into one arm and flings the stone right at the window, where he can clearly see the shape of Damon's head. The window completely shatters inwards, spraying Jeremy, but mainly Damon with razor-sharp shards of smashed glass right in the face. Not to mention the stone that had smacked into his forehead just before, adding to the pain and humiliation.

Stefan smiles, silently enjoying his destruction. It wasn't nearly enough, not by a long shot, but the sight of Damon's face slick with blood, glass jutting out of his face at all angles, making him look like a walking disaster is really quite humourous. Three months ago, it wouldn't have been. Three months ago, Stefan Salvatore was sane. And it had been nice, for a little while. So _boring_ though.

But insanity, however, is a beautiful thing.  
**~X~**  
He still has nightmares. Pounding through his head, chasing the dreams away. The water, filling every crack, every crevice in his body. The pain. The explosions roaring through his gut ten times a day. But somehow it all makes it easier. It gives him something to hold onto, a reminder of what he got when he was too forgiving, too compassionate, too _selfless._ Whenever he showed mercy, it was another stake piercing his heart, his daylight ring slipping off his finger.

Mercy was a means to an end.

The nightmares make him stronger. They stop him from caving in to the person he was, they keep him afraid of getting too close again.  
Sometimes he hears Silas talking in his sleep. He sounds scared. He wonders what Silas could possibly be afraid of, but he's too afraid himself to ask. He wonders why he isn't killing himself to be with his true love, like before. Silas hasn't really told him anything, why he hurt Stefan to begin with, his life two thousand years ago. The real story.  
Stefan thinks he doesn't want to make his life a reality. To accept that his intentions didn't go the way he wanted them to and that the result is loneliness. Because that is essentially what happened to him, too. Which is why he can't find himself hating Silas.

He feels sorry for him. All those years, wasted, all alone. It can drive a person mad.

He also thinks that maybe he wouldn't be alone if Damon hadn't killed Lexi. If Damon hadn't done everything it took to punish him for a life he never wanted, but is now enjoying all the same. He thinks about Lexi, whether she knew about his predicament, whether she watched over him as he lay drowning. What she would be thinking right now if she saw the person he had become.

He cares, just not enough to dwell on it.

Instead, he stares into empty space, thoughts whirling on no particular thing. Grasping and snatching on whispers of memories long gone past, flying by without any focus.

"Your thoughts are churning." Silas calls over from the living room.

"You have to stop doing that. I don't know where you're from, but in this century, people don't like their privacy disturbed." Stefan says, sucking on a blood bag.

"Hmm. Interesting," Silas stands up, with a magazine, staring at the cover with extreme distaste and hate. "These people don't seem to mind though." he points at the subheadings of celebrities being exploited.

"They're famous humans who like the attention." Stefan explains, rolling his eyes.

"Crazy people," Silas tosses the magazine into the bin. "What is the world coming to?"

"Traitors at every turn, thieves snatching at your life, and people who aren't what they seem." Stefan says in a dull monotone. The sting of Damon and Elena is still fresh on his mind, leaving him bitter, eager to escape and never look back. Silas peers at him, not trying to hide that he is reading Stefan's mind. "Why don't you then?"

Stefan sighs, trying to gather his thoughts to figure out what Silas means. "Leave? I dunno. I just... don't."

"You should. This town is a drag." Silas wrinkles his nose.

Stefan smiles and when he does, he thinks of Lexi. "I hear Portland is beautiful this time of year."  
**~X~**  
The Scooby gang finally track them down in New Jersey after two months. But too little, too late.

They should have rescued him months ago.

Stefan is downing another shot and Silas is slicing open the bartender's wrist with his pen knife when he hears the snarky voice that brings back so many painful memories, a bubbling anger that urges him to lash out at something.

"Hello brother."

Stefan grits his teeth, then slowly turns around to face the face that has ruined him for 145 years. In a leather jacket, jeans and smug smirk, Damon stands before him, Elena, Caroline, Jeremy and Bonnie (wasn't she supposed to be dead?) gathered behind him, all looking like a sombre support group."Damon." he nods, before pouring and tossing back his shot to give him an excuse to come up with an insulting comment. "Took you long enough. So, how did you find me?"

"When we looked you up, we heard rumours of a unnaturally powerful immortal wearing your face ripping his way through South America. Literally. And Bonnie told us about some wacky spell reversal on him when she died, and that you had gone missing. It wasn't hard to figure out." Damon says, sneering.

"Well, it seemed to be very difficult for you to prise your lips off my ex-girlfriend and realise I was missing." Stefan smirks coldly.

"Stefan," Elena says softly, and Stefan jerks back at the sound of her voice, rejecting the warm memories she stirs up in him. Because if it all didn't mean enough for her to stay, then it wouldn't mean enough for him either.

"Stop this, please. I know you're upset-"

"You think I'm upset about losing you to my brother? That you carelessly flung me aside? Trust me, I'm over it." Stefan calmly takes another shot as Elena flinches slightly at his words and his 'friends' take a sharp intake of breath in shock.

"So you thought you'd run away with _him_?" Damon jerks his chin at Silas in obvious distaste.

"Well, I know what the term 'family' means." Silas innocently sips blood out of his red paper cup. Damon scowls at him, possibly thinking about attacking him, before deciding against it, and instead settles for an angry clenched jaw.  
"I mean," he continues dryly, "Did you know Stefan drowned for three months in a safe? I did." he smirks slyly. Damon shoots him an evil glare, before looking at Stefan, shocked. "What's he talking about?"

"When I went missing, Silas actually put me in the safe he was supposed to be in," Stefan says casually with a shrug.

"Wait, _what_?" Caroline looks blank with horror and disbelief, and Stefan glares at her so coldly she shrinks back slightly. He'd like to forgive Caroline, the least harmless, and sweetest of the group, but she had been his friend, she should have realised. All of them should have.

"Do I have to repeat myself? I thought you had vampire hearing." he smirks coolly, causing Silas to snort into his cup, shoulders shaking in unmistakable laughter. Caroline opens her mouth to reply, but instead changes her mind and walks out of the bar, looking injured. Elena now looks a little angry, and Bonnie rushes out after Caroline, throwing Stefan a hateful glare on the way out. Stefan buries the guilt boiling up in his stomach, still wearing the arrogant smirk, he knows will annoy Damon.

"Not cool, man." Jeremy warns, surprise evident in his tone.  
"Maybe not, but I think I deserve to think a little selfishly. You know, in case you haven't noticed, the last time I was kind and compassionate, my brother stole my girlfriend. So, what does that say about me, eh?" Stefan mutters softly, still smiling serenely.

"Stefan, he's been killing people! Why are you doing this?!" Elena exclaims angrily, breathing heavily.

"Because I don't get hurt anymore, I know where I stand. And no matter what with you, from the beginning, I had no clue. I didn't know if you loved me and it killed me inside. I was lost." Stefan snaps back, veins coiling under his eyes dangerously. Elena steps away, lost for words, and Stefan takes in a deep breath of relief.  
"Dude, he dumped you in a quarry! Come on, Stefan." Damon is almost pleading now, clearly stressing over a losing battle. Stefan just finds it amusing.

"Yes, he outsmarted me, and trapped me like I was going to trap him. And then he rescued me. Can any of you say that?" Stefan shoots back, calm and collected, though it slices through Damon and Elena just as badly as if he had screamed at them.

"You're going to choose some psycho psychic over us? That's not you Stefan." Jeremy says evenly, arms folded.

Stefan's chest tightens at that. The person he had been with them wasn't the person he really was. "I'm not that person anymore. I never was."  
"Hell to that." Damon snaps, grabbing Stefan's arm. Silas stands up suddenly, his hand shooting out to grab Damon's wrist in a quick sudden movement, twisting it round sharply until he lets go of Stefan with a loud snap and a cry of shock and pain.

"Didn't you hear him? He's not going. Take the hint." Silas snarls before releasing Damon, who staggered backwards. Elena catches him, angry and upset and Jeremy looks stunned, a still figure.

"Walk away Damon," Stefan says quietly, his shot glass cracking beneath his tightly clenched hand. "Walk away and don't come back."  
**~X~**  
It's been six months. Six months of a life he never knew he wanted. Strip clubs, dancing, feeding, become a permanent part of life. Not to mention having to teach Silas how to use a mobile phone, something he'll never forget. Life has been so much better without Mystic Falls in it. It poisoned him to the core, and now it can't kill him anymore. Six months of a hell free life, even an almost normal life. He even had gotten a job as a mechanic, normal things he should have done a long time ago. He has time and time again found it ironic how Silas turned out to be more of a brother to him, despite their first meeting, than Damon, who he knew for two hundred years and gave him countless reasons to give up, ever was.

But that was life for you. Throwing you at every turn.

He thought he had experienced the unexpected. Would know when the universe would throw him off track.  
What he didn't expect was to get home with Silas after work one night was a girl with curly waist-length hair, leather trousers, shiny heels, bringing back memories both good and bad sitting on his armchair, legs elegantly crossed, red nails tapping the arms of the chair. She doesn't look so bad, for someone adjusting to a beating heart, the type of survival that she wasn't accustomed to. The human aspect of life. She smirks when she sees them come in, and he instantly feels at home. In a way the old Stefan never would have felt around his sire. Maybe it's the human quality, her chance at a fresh start that he has hope for.

"Hello boys." Katherine says, a thousand meanings behind her words.

And the familiarity of her voice fits into a hole in his soul he never knew existed.

Now he's home.


	4. Chapter 4

**I missed one out! 5x02: If Katherine hadn't shot Silas.**

**Disclaimer: Julie Plec and L.J Smith own the vampire diaries, not me.**

_**A Deadly Beauty.**_

He pushed the branch all the way through his shoulder, ignoring the minor stab of protesting pain in the bloody mess. It stabbed Jeremy, who felt it a lot more than Silas did, and he slid off of Silas instantly with a sharp cry of pain.

Silas straightened, and turned to face Jeremy, who was now on his hands and knees, shuffling away from him in a reluctant admission of defeat as blood stained his shirt. He picked up the mallet, and swung it towards Jeremy, smacking the end of the wooden handle home against his temple, with a sickening crunch. Jeremy keeled over onto the floor without a sound, unconscious. Silas really didn't fancy wasting five minutes of his time eradicating the Hunter's curse from his mind again, he had more important things to do, like finding a way into the Afterlife, so didn't bother burying the metal part into him.

He tossed the mallet into the dark behind him somewhere, and headed off in the direction he had seen Jeremy come from, hoping to find Katherine. After some aimless wandering down a makeshift path, he found himself back on the main road to the middle of nowhere. He gritted his teeth in irritance, and was about to turn back when he saw her.

Katherine.

She was leaning against the side of a truck, tired and dirty, about twenty feet away. She was impatiently waiting for Jeremy and Matt, jingling the car keys held loosely in her hand.

He approached her warily, but somehow she seemed to sense something, whether he was too loud, or she was naturally suspicious, but she turned her head swiftly to the side and saw him. She straightened up, eyes glued on him, unsure of his motives, because he'd stopped too. He knew it would be pointless now if she ran, to try to catch her, so he remained fixed in the same position.

"There's no point trying to run." he said, his voice loud and clear in the empty, quiet night.

"No, but there's no point in giving up either." she replied in a raspy voice, layered with fear, but ridden with determination. He smiled at her stubborness. He liked her. Her wits, her beliefs, her argumentative personality.

If it wasn't for all that he could kill her without a guilty conscience.

They stood there, feet apart, for a brief, tense moment when she spoke, a nervous tone she was desperate to hide. "I'm not going easily." she said in a croaky voice, also sounding resigned, as well as scared. Maybe she had seen this coming.

Silas nodded, surprisingly in understanding. "I know, and I'm sorry." For a minute he genuinely was. To kill a person over this cure was so petty, yet so important to him. It would have been better if it had stayed in the glass vial. He grabbed her arm, yanking her down the road as she kicked and clawed and screamed and, well, kept true to her word. It was an effort to contain her, but after several struggling minutes, he managed to shove her into his car, compel her, and drive off. All he needed now was a destroyed anchor and he would be good to go and off himself.

She marched slowly after him as he took her back to his place, his compulsion doing its work.

"So, what are you gonna do with me? Take a sip of my blood, kill yourself and pass onto the Afterlife to find your dead girlfriend who's probably forgotten all about you?" she asked snarkily, settling down onto his armchair, crossing her legs.

She didn't know the full story. Charming. "Your blood is the cure, Katherine. I need every last drop of blood from your body to be cured. Does that clear things up for you?" he smirked at the shock on her face. She lowered her head wordlessly, scowling at the floor and then crossed her arms and mumbled something unintelligible along the lines of 'stupid Elena.' He smiled, despite himself. He knew he couldn't help it, but he was falling under her spell just like every other man she had met.

"Don't worry little one, I won't kill you yet," He murmured, leaning over the couch to talk into her hair. She visibly tensed, and shrunk away from him in disgust, making him laugh.

"You are, after all, quite something. Something that reminds me of Amara."

"If she had any taste, she'd know what she was letting herself in for." Katherine spat, curling protectively up onto the couch.

Okay, that had hurt, a quick stab to his stomach. He blinked, and came round to sit on the armchair next to her, and switched on the TV. He wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of answering, but she seemed to pick up on his silence as a weakness and smirked, prodding further. "At least she's dead so she doesn't have to put up with you," Katherine uncurled her legs, stretching them across the sofa, still wearing that irritating smirk. Silas gritted his teeth, flicking through the channels, trying in vain to block her out. But she kept going.

"I mean, Qetsiyah really must be crazy, if she intends to spend eternal death with you. Your doppelgänger's much nicer." She sneered.

That did it.

"God, do you _ever_ shut up, or is this just your constant cry for attention?" He snapped, spinning round to face her. "If this is what you do to everyone, it's no wonder Damon wanted you dead. You're just _horrible_, and that's even coming from me."

She blinked several times, before scowling and curling up again. Clearly no-one had ever said that to her before with a real kick. Her eyes started filling up and she looked away, wiping furiously at them, and looking at the droplets on her hands, as though she couldn't believe they were really there.

Oh great, she was crying.

"Oh, don't cry, people have said worse to you." He tried to focus on the TV, but her faint sniffles were making him feel guilty. Finally, he sighed, and looked at her again, her hunched over form, ever so fragile and red-rimmed eyes, tugging at his gut. So annoyingly beautiful. This could have really worked out in his favour if she hadn't looked like his girlfriend.

"Are you hungry?" He said, leaning back. She nodded, staring at him.

"Okay, then, just..." He gestured at the cupboards. "Help yourself."

She at first refused to move, sitting in still silence for about ten minutes, before slowly inching her way out of her seat, then hopping over to the cupboards, opening them and tossing things out. A loud rustling caught his attention; she was grabbing about ten bags of crisps and a bag of sweet popcorn and hefting them over to the couch. That was his entire supply gone-she must have been starving from the way she was now gobbling them down, ravenous and crazy-lady-like.

"Slow down, you'll get sick." He laughed. She frowned at him, then said something unintelligible through the food stuffed in her mouth. It sounded rude.

After that, she raided his DVD selection, however small, stuck _Friends _in the DVD player, and settled back onto her sofa.

He gave her an odd look. "What are you doing?"

She shrugged, munching on a chocolate bar. "I'm living a normal life, what else?"

He smiled at her. There was something about her...

"You can't have a normal life around me. And you won't have time to."

She glared at him, but he just found it amusing. Amara used to glare at him like that. Look where it got her with him.

"No, but I can try."

**~X~**

Sometimes, Silas would catch her staring into space. She dreamt of hope, she dreamt of love, she dreamt of freedom.

And he wished she wouldn't, because he still dreams of those things too. He broke free of the tomb physically, but never mentally. Some things never leave you, and in two thousand years you'd have a lot that played on your mind. Even doing nothing, frozen in stone for eternity counts as something.

It had been a week, and that seemed to slip by like water through his fingers. After wasting all that time, he was desperate to make up for what he had lost before he lost his life.

Of course, Katherine knew that, so she turned the radio up at eight every morning so loudly to annoy him, he wondered if he should just put her out of her misery right there and then. Because she was making his miserable life more miserable because she wanted to _stop _being miserable.

And now he felt sorry, he felt sick, he felt helpless.

You couldn't save everyone, but he wanted to save _her _from promised death. For no apparent reason other than that she intrigued him. And her looks.

But they were both too selfish, so she would die, and he would die with her. Only one of them would get what they wanted in death.

So he bided his time with the anchor. He bided his time in general, because they both deserved to _live._

But one day he would find it, and one day, they'd both be gone. One day, he would be with Amara, and one day, she'd be all alone.

She was scared. He could tell by the way she looked at him when he came storming out of his room to unplug the radio and stop her raiding his biscuits, but a part of her enjoyed his reactions all the same. But for some reason, if she suddenly stopped, he'd miss her. He knew it with a gut feeling as he stared at her watching the TV, popcorn missing her mouth as she tried to eat and watch at the same time.

"You know," he suddenly said, thinking aloud, as she spun round to face him, startled, too captivated in her movie. "You're not as bitchy as you're made out to be."

She relaxed, a hint of a smile edging onto her face. "And you're not as scary as _you're _made out to be."

It was just about the nicest things they'd said to each other. Probably the nicest things they would ever say again.

At least he was going down knowing he wasn't hated by everyone.

At least she was getting dragged down with him knowing he wasn't completely hateful either.

**~X~**

They founnd the anchor. They found Amara. And the relief he felt was overpowering. No-one had to die, not anymore.

The next time he saw Katherine, it was in a room with lights sparking everywhere, and Tessa performing a spell to make Bonnie the anchor. She actually full-on smiled at him. He couldn't help but grin back. Amara had given him a weird look afterwards, but at least her doppelgänger was safe. For some reason, she had become... important to him.

He approached her, and kissed her on the forehead. He could practically feel her confusion, but it just made him smile against her forehead.

"I never wanted you to die, and I'm glad you didn't. Always remember that." He murmured into her, lips still pressed to her forehead, before walking away, back towards Amara, who was staring at Katherine with the same picture of confusion she had worn, with little dashes of hatred in there as well.

He smirked, before steering her away, out the Boarding House and beyond.

In the end, he mused, he walked away with Amara, but a tiny part of his soul stayed with Katherine, despite all those wake-up calls, and the annoying food raids, how they argued.

Because, life was just funny like that.


	5. Chapter 5

**This one is about the Afterlife Katherine went to. Just something I'm experimenting with.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own tvd or its characters, they belong to Julie Plec and L.J Smith.**

Darkness.

All she could see, all she could _feel, _was darkness smothering her, pressing against her from all sides, curling wisps of it coiling into her mouth, suffocating her as it dripped sluggishly down her throat. She could even _taste _it on her tongue, bittersweet, the stuff of nightmares. She couldn't see a metre in front of her before the black caved in on her vision. Anything else she saw was grey anyway. She might as well have been blind for all the use her eyes gave her. She couldn't tell if they were open or shut, and, it kinda scared her.

But, this was her death. This was her Afterlife. This was her _Hell._

She was so _bored_, all of of the time. She couldn't do anything but listen. She had even grown accustomed to counting the strands of her hair if she could see them. She sometimes talked to herself, slowly going mad, expecting someone to answer, needing someone else there.

But the silence was deafening.

Because if there was one thing Katherine Pierce hated above all else, above Klaus, above humanity, above death itself, it was loneliness. And she was all alone.

Well, not _completely _alone, because sometimes she did hear things. Little whispers that she had to reach out and search for, listen carefully to them before they filtered away because they were better than nothing. They were better than being alone, in muffled darkness for all eternity. Harsh, jabbing words they were though, enough to make her turn away, curling up into a ball in mid-air as though she could hide, and carved carefully to skitter across her skin and slice into her like a knife, reminding her of every evil thing she'd ever done, then bring her emotions, her guilt, her grief, her sadness rushing to the surface, only to feed on it. And every time, she became less human, lost the ability to feel those things a little more each time, as the Voices ripped her ability to care apart. It worked. It always worked. She let it because it meant someone was here. It meant she had hope, despite floating through blackness, clawing and fighting against the thick tension that constricted her all around, even though there was no way out, no path, no people...

No light.

And Katherine _needed _light, she needed something to tell her how long she'd been here, and how long she would be here, even though she knew the answer to the last one. She groped for something, anything, a sliver of a chance so she could hang on to the thought of life before the emotions that made her her were gone forever.

But it didn't look like that was going to be happening anytime soon.

**~X~**

The Voices were back in full-force. It was a pity. Katherine had almost dozed off, what with nothing else to do. She lay there, floating on ink for a moment, before struggling upright, kicking towards the ground, until she felt something solid underneath her feet. It was a constant battle-to remain on her feet. It was so easy to be swept back off them again in this world. It was like floating on a cloud, but the cloud had a dark, evil substance to it, churning and thick. Tendrils of fog-like stuff waved and curled about her body as she moved, frantically trying to escape the Voices. It never worked, of course it didn't, but it took her a moment to realise that the Voices weren't speaking. She had adjusted to time without another living soul, so it took her some time to realise the sounds were of scrabbling. A scratching sound along the texture of the floor that sent chills running down her spine. Something was there. Something was coming for her. Or maybe someone.

Of course, it could be her imagination, sanity wasn't exactly her strong point nowadays. But, only one way to find out.

"Hello?" Katherine muttered, hope soaring in her chest. The one emotion she could find that she had left. Her fear had been stolen, she was dead already, why still be scared? Only silence rebounded back at her though, mocking and cold. So she screamed it this time, needing some sort of sound. "HELLO?!"

Her voice echoed out, ringing in the darkness, guttural, and slightly pleading, to the Voices that stole her pity. Nothing more. There was nobody there. And there never would be. Never had there been a more horrible person than her who had died, never who would end up here. The hope deflated in her chest as she let the fog sweep her back off her feet, dangling a few inches in the air. She was lost. She was lost without hope.

She wouldn't have been surprised if there _was _anyone there, and she just sounded too mournful to go near.

But then she ended up in for the surprise of her life-or, rather, death-because someone answered back.

"Who's there?" A soft whisper, tinged with hope, stirring memories she couldn't quite reach in the corner of her mind. She knew who that was, she'd heard that voice before. But she couldn't put her finger on it.

But if it was, even if by instinct, that she felt she knew this person, then maybe she would be okay after all, now she had eternal death with someone by her side. She took a deep, unneeded breath, and said, "Wouldn't you like to know?"

She wasn't taking any chances.

There was an echoey stamp a few feet away from her, as though someone had taken a step forward.

"Doppelgänger?" The voice asked wryly, and this time it was louder so she could tell it was a man. Someone she recognised, someone who knew she was a doppelgänger, but didn't know which one she was...

That could only mean a select few people could possibly be here right now.

Only two were men.

Only one had that particular voice, chilling, and yet comforting at the same time. Belonging to two different people, both of whom she felt completely different about.

Oh, no.

Of all the supernatural beings who had died and been dragged into hell, did it really have to be...

"Silas." Katherine stated, slamming her feet into the ground and taking a wary step back further into inky darkness.

"And, judging by your tone of disgust and fear, Katherine." Came his sour reply.

"Funny." She sneered, blindly searching for an escape route, even though she knew there wasn't one.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, still searching, panic overriding instinct and common sense. "Didn't you find peace with Amara?"

"Nope, apparently not, and, it should be pretty obvious why I'm here." Silas said, begrudged.

There was a tight pause, as Katherine slowly backed away, inch by inch. She didn't need to reply to that, they both knew the answer. She just needed to get out of here. Because even in death, he still scared her.

"You still there?" He asked, shuffling forward. He sounded... Scared. Desperate. Alone.

She sighed loudly. "Yeah, I'm still here."

"Good," Another pause. "I'm glad. I was alone for a long time. I've always been alone."

"I know the feeling." She muttered, reluctantly stopping in her tracks. Now she was feeling sorry for him. Great.

"Do the Voices get to you too? Make you... lose sense of who you are?" Silas suddenly asked. He sounded a lot closer now. A _lot. _She could very faintly feel his breath on her face.

She swallowed, trying to bury the memory. "Yeah. It's _awful, _a perfect hell. Something... something I'd rather forget... but I-"

"But you can't." He interrupted softly, as though he could still read her mind. She could see the faint outline of his figure, but it was barely anything, and it all blurred together in her confusion and lack of sight.

"I've tried." She muttered. "I've really tried, but they steal my humanity away and I hate it, because I'm powerless. The one thing you can't use as a weapon is your emotions."

"No," he mused, still unmoving. "But emotions can invoke wars. Maybe these... things wanted us here for a reason. Maybe there's something about us that's important to them."

"Where do you wanna start on the list of things valuable about us?" She laughed dryly. He momentarily joined in, and for a moment, she felt the suction-like feeling in her stomach stop in the lighthearted moment.

It didn't last long.

Now the Voices really _were _back, piercingly loud, shrieking at them, as though they couldn't stand a second of happiness in their hell-hole.

_"Ssstupid, ssstupid little girl, little Katerina, little girl who loved too blindly." _They hissed as one, all in unison. They all spoke in high-pitched whispers, glee and menace in their tone as they yanked the hope right out of her. Katherine felt vacant, empty, as she fell to her knees, pressing her hands to her ears as she screamed in pure rage at them, before that was stolen too, sucked out of her as though she had been punched and lost her breath.

_"No-one caressss, they're glad you're gone, everyone hates, hatesss, HATESSS! HATES you." _They all crooned in a sing-along voice. She curled up, suddenly aware that Silas was crouching down in front of her as she silently cried, hugging her tightly, his hands cradling her head as the Voices crushed him too. She desperately reached out, fumbling around for him until she landed on something solid, and clung on with clenched fingers, rocking into his chest.

_"You didn't desssserve that child, child, child, her death is your fault, your FAULT! She died when she met you, everyone diesssss when they meeeet you, it's your curssse, your curssse, you inflict on othersss, you don't dessserve happinessss! Your lucky ssshot at human lifffe wasn't enough for you." _They screeched, and screeched and wouldn't stop, her emotions were choking her, she scrabbled in a panic, her nails digging into Silas' shoulders in what surely must have been painful half-moon grooves, but his face somehow had become buried in her hair as he rubbed soft circles on her back soothingly as she whimpered.

_NottruenottrueNadiaNadiaNadia..._

But even as they dug deep into her soul, they clawed their way into Silas too.

_"Cheater, cheater, cheater, two thousand yearsss of a life you ssshould ssstill be in, coward, COWARD! You aren't fit to walk the Earth, ssshould have remained trapped in your tomb, rotting, ssstarving, ssstarving..."_

His hand pulled on her hair tighter, but she welcomed the pain. It blocked out the claws tearing at what was left of her soul, she could finally _concentrate _on something other than them. She wanted his inflictions. She _needed _the pain to survive.

She didn't know how long they were locked together like that, but for some reason she wouldn't have it any other way. The Voices retracted, slid away, and she felt her soul unwind from the choking grip it was in. Once they were miserable and scared enough, it seemed the Voices left them alone.

A little less human than before. And what scared Katherine the most was that she didn't know how much human was left in her.

She shivered at the thought, and unfurled away from Silas as he slid emptily back away from her. It seemed both of them would rather forget that happened.

She was shaking violently as she stood up, the laws of this world keeping her adrift from the floor, trying to expel the thoughts that the Voices had so cleverly woven into her mind. There was silence once more, and for a second she actually _dreaded _that Silas wasn't there anymore, but the thick, black fog was coiling around him, she caught snatches of his face, before he was swallowed by darkness again. It must have been the dark leather jacket he was wearing that made him hard to see.

"Are you okay?" He finally asked. She cringed; he sounded so faraway and so close at the same time. It was disorientating.

"No."

"Neither am I." He muttered. She subconsciously fumbled for him, desperate for the contact of another human being, and caught the sleek material of his jacket, gripping it tightly. She needed to be okay again. And she couldn't be if she was alone. His arms reluctantly came up, and she could feel them hovering around her shoulders, before he gingerly wrapped her in an awkward hug as though he had never done it before. It was a mutual thing, she knew, so they wouldn't feel so afraid anymore.

Such a difference from all those months ago.

It was an improvement for the better. One less person to hate, to be hated by, there were so many that there was no longer a distinguishable difference.

But her loneliness wasn't reflected back at her in a thick, suffocating death fog anymore.

Maybe it was for the better, even if she was stuck with him for all eternity.

**~X~**

She was with him for one hundred and thirty seven hours of compainable silence before he came up with a plan.

"What if, we bring them back, then instead of reacting like we normally do, ignore them and think happy thoughts?"

She squinted at him, or what of him he could see. "Well, it's impossible. Duh!"

She was almost sure she saw him laugh. "No it's not, they just let us think it is."

"Right." She scoffed, turning away. She didn't want to believe it, that it seemed that easy.

"Fine. I'm going to try it. With or without you." He huffed, standing up, and marching away.

It took her about a second to give in.

"Okay, wait for me!" She wasn't one to give up _that _easily after all.

**~X~**

It was almost a laugh. They were already there, like they knew what they were doing and were trying to stop it. The Voices attacked her first. Flew right at her, no longer emotionally, but _physically _as well, clawing and shrieking, distracting her with all their might. She fought it, hard. Shoving, snarling, but they were persistent, and so she had to be too.

"Get away, get out of my head!" She shrieked, batting at them, as they darted around her head, merely laughing wickedly. She caught little snatches of them that were almost too horrifying for the brain to comply; jagged, yellow slits for eyes, a twisted grimace that revealed unevenly pointed teeth, and their bodies-if you could even call them that, were all melted, and mushed together, like melted marshmallow. You couldn't tell where one grotesque limb began, and where another ended. The bodies all seemed to constantly _move _too, wobbling like the consistency of jelly.

It made her feel sick just thinking about them.

So instead, she thought about Nadia. Her last moments with her that had been so sad and yet happy at the same time. She had seen her daughter into the world, so it seemed fitting she would see her out of it. A pressure in her head suddenly dimmed, one she hadn't even realised was there, and she had never felt so _light._ She fought harder, as the creepy creatures crawled away, as though she were no longer appetising. It was working! The suction-like feeling was leaving her body, and she focused, got a grip. She was dead, but right now she'd never felt more alive, triumphant at surviving yet again.

"Katherine!" Silas grabbed her hand, and she breathed out her relief, deliberately relaxing. "Come on, it's now or never, those things are gonna realise at some point!"

She squeezed his hand back, before they started running. Running away from the shrieks and howls of the demented souls within, running from Hell.

Running from death.

The pounding patter of their shoes slapping against the icy, echoey floor as they ran rebounded in her thoughts, knocking around her skull. But she could see her way out, like the light at the end of a tunnel. She focused on her hope, her love, the good parts of her life, being a vampire, meeting Stefan, Nadia, she felt the strain in her body from the exertion of channelling her thoughts into pure power. It hurt, like an ache, but it was worth running through the pain. She didn't care where she ended up now, anywhere but here. Anyplace happy, any peace, even a little, she deserved it in her long, exhausting struggle to stay alive.

The light grew larger and larger, until it filled her vision completely, the brightness searing her eyes as she forced herself to keep looking at that light.

And that was the last thing she saw, for now.

**~X~**

Katherine felt... blank. Peaceful. Free.

And that was until she realised the sun was warming her face and the grass was pressed against her back.

She jerked upright, gasping in a breath of cool fresh air, that felt completely wonderful compared to the choking fingers of dark evil. Looking up, she saw a bright blue sky, and not a cloud in sight. It seemed like Heaven, but she knew nothing perfect on the top would ever stay perfect for long. A groan sounded next to her, and she whipped her head to the side next to her in alarm, relaxing only when she saw Silas sitting up next to her, eyes wide in surprise.

"Of all the places I expected to be, I did not expect this. We must be here for a reason." He said, standing up, and offering her a hand, which she accepted. She looked at him in wonder; she hadn't seen that face in a long time and she had missed it. From the hungry look he was giving her, he felt the same. About Amara. Yep. A pang of hurt sliced through her chest and she looked away in surprise. Why did she feel that way? Burying it, she marched down the front lawn of the large house behind them that looked strangely like Elena's house.

_Wait, _she stopped and turned. That _was _Elena's house. Impossible. She gaped at it, jaw dropping in shock, her insides freezing.

"What?" Silas demanded, seeing her freeze, and walked back up to her.

"That's Elena's house." She stated in shock.

"So?" Silas rolled his eyes. "That's a good thing! We're back in Mystic Falls."

"No, bad." She shook her head. "Because Elena burned down her house a year ago." She raked the house, searching for anything to prove her wrong, but only a newspaper was on the doorstep. She ran over to it, eagerly scanning it for any evidence of their whereabouts. The date flashed out at her in small, black ink, chilling her bones to the core. They were very far from home. Further than they thought.

"Then, where are we?" Silas pondered aloud, looking up at the clear, blue sky.

She looked down at the newspaper, brow furrowing in confusion. The impossible was now possible. Maybe this was their ticket home.

"Mystic Falls, 1994."

**To be continued...**

**Please review!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Kind of chapter 3 part two thing going on here, I had a comment on a threesome and it gave me a great idea, so many thanks to Katherine Salvatore15 for this chapter! ;-)**

**Disclaimer: Julie Plec and L.J Smith own the vampire diaries characters, not me.**

He had not seen it coming.

The collection of unfortunate events that mashed together to make his life, the negativity, the guilt, the pain, again and again. One big cycle.

He hadn't seen Katherine Pierce coming back into his life with a positive glow, making his life that tiny bit better. The difference between the straw on the camal's back. He couldn't have seen it coming, not by a long shot.

Yet, there she was, Sunday afternoon, toe-nail painting on his lap. Not of any relevance to him, but again, she had spent her life betraying her loved ones until she met him.  
"Why are you here?" he asks her. It was something that had been bugging him for the past month, but he never got round to asking it.

She smiles, and it is a very pleased smile, as though she had been waiting for him to ask her.  
"For you."

Of course that was the reason. He should have known, it always was.

The question was, was if she meant it.

"For protection, you mean." He shoots back angrily. Maybe he was getting his hopes up for nothing. She needed a safe haven, and he hadn't changed enough to stop her. She was a permanent part of his life, whether he liked it or not.

"I wanted you, regardless if I was a vampire or a human. The protection is an added bonus." Katherine snaps, painting her left foot's big toe. The colour is hot pink. Not that he noticed.

He grabs her ankles, and she freezes, fear dancing in her eyes. She doesn't know how far he could go. She's scared.

For some reason, that is terrifying.

He starts running his thumbs over her feet in slow, smooth motions. She slowly relaxes, settling back into the couch, twisting the top to her nail varnish back on.

"What happened to Elijah?" He smirks as her feet tense again, this time in shock. "Don't know, don't care." She huffs. That was a sore question.

"Well, he's an idiot. He liked the human you."

"You liked the human Elena." Katherine teases, leaning forward.

"Human Elena was someone who was never mine. " he replies stiffly.

Katherine shakes her head. "Then why waste all that time if you knew you had already lost?" She's very pleased, he's stepping closer into her crimson embrace.

"I liked to think I hadn't lost her to my brother, like I lost you." He says bitingly.

She sighs. "You never lost me. Damon did." She tosses the nail varnish onto the coffee table and gets onto her knees, leaning into him until she is mere inches away from his face. Kissable distance, if he wanted. It would be easy, she was only human.

"You got me all too easily. Damon yearned for a part of me that would love him back, but I couldn't. I could only love you. And you can only love me." She smirks, biting his lower lip slowly. He strokes her hair back slowly, leaning closer, closer, closer. One month. One month was all it took to succumb to her. It was too easy. His heart thrums anxiously in anticipation and he finally decides to stop it from waiting.

He kisses her, hard and deep, all consuming darkness and passion knocking into him. Her hands tangle in his hair, and he keeps falling, falling, falling.

Into her crimson embrace.

And he loves every moment of it.

He lifts her top off, making her blink in surprise, before she completely ruins his shirt by ripping it down the front, trailing burning kisses down his chest as his shoes are kicked off somewhere on the other side of the room.

After that, he really doesn't remember much else other than her.

**~X~**

Silas comes back. And, from the look on his face when he enters the room to find Katherine and him in nothing but the couch blanket, it was probably not what he had been expecting.

"So, um... when'd this happen?" He makes a circling motion with his finger at him, still shocked. There was something else there too, something flickering in his eyes that Stefan could barely make out. It looked like pain.

Stefan smirks up at him. "Not too long ago."  
Next to him, Katherine giggles and snuggles closer to him.

Silas nods, wide-eyed, then just steps over them awkwardly to get into the kitchen. "That's disgusting." He informs them as he raids the cupboards. "How am I ever supposed to sit on that sofa again?"

"We now deem this our sofa. Go buy a new one." Katherine grins lightheartedly. Silas smiles at her as he pulls out a bottle of wine.  
"I think I'm gonna need this."

"So am I. I'm tired." Katherine says, stretching. She stands up suddenly, and Silas and Stefan freeze, staring at her as she hunts for her clothes.  
She catches them looking and smiles. "Perverts. It's nothing you both haven't seen before."

Silas blinks several times in surprise, before his face smooths out, but not before Stefan sees it. Katherine knows a lot more about Silas than she's letting on, and it's a lot more than he wants her to know.

"By the way, your ex is a right bitch." She adds, pulling on her shirt. Stefan is confused. Why tell them now, after all these weeks?

"Qetsiyah's back." Silas doesn't seem surprised. Maybe she can't take a hint. "Why didn't you tell us?"

She shrugs. "I didn't want you two rushing off to your deaths. I like living with you guys, without Elena hanging around."

"Thanks, I think." Stefan mutters, pulling on his clothes, a rather awkward job from his position on the sofa, so he rolls onto the floor.

"Damon misses you," Katherine smirks at him. That was out of the blue. "He didn't ever say, but I could tell." She's clearly waiting for his reaction.

"Huh, well that's strange, 'cause I don't miss him." Stefan replies, standing up to glare at her. He hasn't thought about Damon in months; he doesn't need all the bad memories to come rushing back.

"Good. That's what I was hoping for. Unlike Damon, you don't turn back. It's what I like about you." Katherine says. She's obviously very pleased about this afternoon's turn of events. Silas stares at them, clearly missing out on whatever's happening. He's mainly looking at Katherine, in what Stefan recognises above all else. It's what he had had for weeks after Elena got together with Damon, whilst the sire bond was still intact, and it was one of the worst feelings in the world.

Longing.

He just feels guilty, guilty as hell. Because he hadn't known, that Silas liked Katherine, or he wouldn't have kissed her in the first place. He should have known, he should have known. History is going to repeat itself.

She has no clue. Otherwise she would have played this to her advantage. Played them both against each other, accidental or not, and he would have had to leave. Start over, all over again. He looks at Silas, who has somewhat managed to suppress his feelings until now. He holds up the bottle and says, "Gotta go. You young 'un's have fun." He jokes, trying to conceal his pain, then sprints up the stairs as though he's running from something.

Maybe he's running from them.

**~X~**

They follow him. Stefan gives him another vodka bottle, and sits down next to him with an apologetic look. They end up watching animated movies and throwing back alcohol until they are so drunk they can barely walk. Katherine giggles hysterically, her head resting on Silas' shoulder as they watch Despicable Me, a favourite Stefan knows Silas doesn't like to admit to. But his interest isn't really on the minions right now so much as on the girl practically sitting on him. Yawning and hugging his shoulder tightly, burrowing into his shirt. He smiles softly at her, and Stefan can tell that he's in deep. Just like him. Just like every other guy. He can kinda see what Silas was missing out on earlier. It was something there, something important. By the time they are halfway through the movie, Silas is captivated by Katherine's captivation of the movie, and Stefan is too busy watching them with something close to jealousy to be interested in the movie anymore. Even drunk, his emotions betray him. They're stuck in that little chain for so long that he starts getting used to it by the time they get to Despicable Me 2.

So in the end, it isn't a surprise when Silas kisses Katherine.

And it isn't really a surprise when she kisses him back, more of a painful twinge tightening in his stomach.

But what is most surprising, is when she reaches for him. He kisses her deeply, the alcohol deluding his senses, as his shirt comes off again for the second time that day. Silas' follows and he starts kissing Katherine's neck, before she somehow wriggles out of her bra without breaking away. Her top is ripped off next, by him or Silas, he can't really remember.

But what he does remember, is a hot, sweaty tangle of bodies that is the most fun he's gotten out of being drunk in a long time.

**~X~**

"That was fun." Katherine smirks once she catches her breath.

"Huh, you're not bad, Pierce." Silas smirks back as she drunkenly pats his chest in acknowledgement. Oh, he definetly looks what Stefan feels. Content.

"Both of you, stop looking so smug, I'm tired!" She giggles and buries her face in the pillows.

"What? Like this?" Stefan smiles, and leers at her, as she shrieks and pulls the covers further over her. He can't help but laugh and he knows Silas can't either as he plays with her hair, and toys with the strands.

"Yes!" Comes her muffled reply, and Stefan laughs again as he flops back onto the bed next to her, drunk.

Delirious.

Happy.

Although he can't help but wonder how long it will take down the road until it circles back to 1864, all over again.

**~X~**

He supposes it is a kind of happy ending, because Katherine seems to have learnt from the last time things went wrong, but maybe it's because she's now human, and well, maybe because she's sleeping with the most powerful creature alive and it's not wise to get on his bad side.

She treats them both equally. Kisses them both, and spends time with one whilst the other's away, and maybe the reason Stefan trusts her not to fall in too deep like before is because she can always tell the difference between the two of them.

Or maybe it's that he and Silas know not to compete because it's never ended well before for them in the past.

~X~

"Do you love us both?" He asks her one day, when Silas is out, shopping, which for some reason makes him laugh. He never was really a major shopping type, so picturing himself doing it is somewhat hilarious.

She knows they both love her. She must do by now.

She clucks her tongue. "I don't know."

**~X~**

She helps them both with their respective traumas. Soothes them every drunk time they all fall into bed which is far too many times longer count.

His nightmares are over, but somehow he feels as though he wishes they would stay because he's afraid that without them he will fall apart and fall back into his old ways.

And with his old ways, he loses everything.

And the trouble with becoming the person he was is that he would lose control.

If he stayed like this, he had nothing to lose. Katherine loved both of them and she wasn't going anywhere, and if she was, Silas would know anyway.

Sometimes, like right now, he'll sit on the bench on the back porch, and swing his legs ever so childishly, and think about these things.

Like right now, Silas comes and sits next to him. He never normally does it, and he never normally says anything, just stares up at the night sky. Stefan thinks he still thinks of freedom. He thinks he's sometimes still afraid.

"You're worried. About Katherine." He states., right out of the blue. Stefan smiles. "When am I not?"

"You're supposed to worry, Stefan. That is what love is." Silas replies, looking at him with serious green eyes that reflect back Stefan's own identical pair.

"That's not what I'm worried about. I'm worried about what love is to her." Stefan mutters sadly. He wishes that wasn't the truth, but a tiny part of him can't always help but distrust her.

"It means getting what she wants. It means winning." Stefan calls up those words from so long ago, from a time trapped in a tomb when he had Elena, and he was still fighting a battle he hadn't realised he had already lost.

Silas' brow furrows in concern, and maybe even a little fear. "Did she tell you that?"

Stefan laughs. It sounds mad to his ears. "She told me that a very long time ago."

There's a long silence, then Silas speaks again. "That has many different meanings, all the positive ones I hope are directed at us."

Stefan huffs. "Me too, but I'm scared she means it the way she did one hundred and forty seven years ago with me and my brother." He reluctantly admits.

"She doesn't, I would know. There are a million different things running through her head as she dreams, and the most she worries about is us leaving her because she loves us, and, I think she struggles with it." Silas assures him.

"So don't worry, shadow self, if she does leave, it won't be because she doesn't love me, or you, enough. It'll be because she loves us too much."

**~X~**

"What on Earth took you two so long?" Katherine asks impatiently as they come back in. The TV's blaring, and she's painting her toe nails again; this time a crisp white.

"Doppelgänger bonding." Silas smiles sweetly. She sighs and shakes her head as they sit down either side of her and she puts her head in Stefan's lap and her drying feet in Silas'. She's never done it before, and Stefan shares a bemused glance with Silas as she settles down on them. For some reason she's feeling sentimental, and at the peaceful look on her face, Stefan wishes at that moment, more than anything, he could dive into her mind like Silas, just to see what she's thinking.

He hopes she's thinking all about him.

**~X~**

They've just left to pick up a Christmas tree. They left Katherine sleeping in the house, to keep it a surprise. Sounds so ordinary. Their first Christmas together.

The first Christmas he's had in a long time.

"Thank you." Stefan says into the silence.

Silas looks over him, frowning. "What for?"

"I think I would have gone mad if you hadn't talked to me about Katherine."

Silas chuckles. He looks pleased. "Well, she's worth it."

Stefan agrees instantly.

"Yes she is."

**Thanks for reading! Please give me suggestions, I'm running out of ideas!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Part two of chapter 5; please let me know if you liked it.**

**Disclaimer: Julie Plec and L.J Smith own the vampire diaries characters, not me.**

They were in...well, Katherine didn't know where exactly. 1994, May 10th. They'd gone back in _time. _That couldn't be possible. No way. But the newspaper flashing the date in front of them couldn't be lying. It was a specific date, and probably one of the worst possible ones. They'd stepped out of one Hell, and into another. It didn't seem fair, it _wasn't._

And while she was absorbing this dilemma, Silas was making pancakes. _Pancakes_. She'd laugh at the sight, but it didn't seem funny right now, in this place.

They'd been here two days, and there was no-one else here, and they were stuck on repeat in the same day, all over again.

Worst of all, they were stuck in Elena's _house. _She'd suggested the Boarding House, but _no_, Silas wanted to stay here where all the pancake batter mix was, with the bright, happy wallpaper, and the neat and orderly furniture. Boring! She'd leave, but she'd be alone again, and who knew what was creeping about here, however unlikely.

Besides, for some reason she felt much safer with him.

"Do you want whipped cream?" Silas asked cheerily, painting a huge smile onto his face when she glared at him. He was enjoying her discomfort _way _too much.

"You're being ridiculous. And annoying." Katherine said, as he placed the plate in front of her. The pancake had a really creepy smiley face on it with chocolate sauce, and it looked like it was watching her. She jabbed at it viciously, taking out her frustration on it.

"Leave the pancake alone!" Silas said, leaning into her hair and smirking.

"You're lucky _you're _not the pancake!" Katherine smiled, gripping her fork sinisterly.

"Ooh, I've been warned, scary!" Silas sat down opposite her. He was so _irritating. _Uurggh, and...sexy, she had to admit that.

"Mmmm, anyway, since we're stuck in the worst possible year, you have any quick-smart ways of getting out?" She asked, chewing her pancake. It was surprisingly good, a light and fluffy texture.

"Yes, but without an ascendant, we aren't getting anywhere." Silas said, disappointment in his eyes that she knew was a reflection of her own emotions. She didn't want to be stuck here, but it was better than before. At least they had a nice view and a constant supply of food.

"Damn." Katherine muttered. "Then we might as well go shopping!" Her spirits lifted as she said it. Maybe shopping would help her feel better about being dead.

"We have to eat something other than pancakes!" She added reasonably. Silas gritted his teeth. "Yeah, why not?"

Katherine clapped her hands excitedly. "Great! Let's go!" She jumped up and hurried out the front door, vaguely irritated by Silas laughing at her. She pursed her lips, and wandered off down the road, towards the mall. She didn't have a car, but she was determined to have fun in this one-horse town.

She'd been kicked out of Hell, so she could do anything.

**~X~**

They'd been here two weeks. Two weeks, and they still hadn't found a way out. She was starting to think they never would.

Right up until she saw the car parked in the shopping mall parking lot that definitely hadn't been there yesterday.

"You've got to be kidding me." She muttered to herself. Oh, this was getting worse by the second.

"There's someone here?" Silas asked, eyes widening in delight.

"Not just anyone. That's Damon's car!" Katherine whispered, hopping over it. There was glee in her horror as well; maybe she could trash it.

"Damon's here?" Silas sounded dubious.

"Huh," she stopped in her tracks. That _did _sound unlikely. "Maybe not, that guy's practically unkillable purely because of his ironic sense of humour. He must have left it here in 1994."

"Hopefully." Silas muttered, walking into the food shop. Katherine smirked, and followed him in as he grabbed a shopping trolley and pushed it down the aisle.

"Well, would you rather Tessa was here?" She remarked snidely as she opened a freezer door and took out some lollies. She'd missed them.

"No, but," he pulled a pair of sunglasses from the rack next to him and put them on, leaning on the trolley. "Damon's not much better, and he's not much use."

"I suppose." She sighed as she grabbed a bag of apples and tossed them in. "Anyway, what's next on the list?"

"Um," Silas looked down at the notepaper he'd scrawled on. "Ice cream."

Katherine dumped in a tub of ice cream, frowning at how unhealthy they were.

"But-" she started to argue, but the the sound of someone shoving open the door caused them both to freeze in their tracks. As though simultaneously, they ducked into the next aisle, Silas going round and shoving the trolley right out the back door.

"What? Why are we running?" Katherine demanded as Silas sped round the corner.

"What if they're dangerous to us? I mean, we're not very well liked, you should hear what people say about you." He hissed back at her.

"Well, excuse me for being sociable. It's not like I want to be stuck here with you!" She snapped back hotly, marching off as fast as she could in her heels. She was so _angry, _she didn't want to be here anymore, she wanted to be _alive._

And since she couldn't have her daughter, she would have to settle for that.

"Uurggh, Katherine, wait, I'm sorry!" She heard Silas grumble. He spun the trolley around and sped after her.

"Yeah, you should be." She shot back moodily, but she stopped anyway. She wanted to hear what he had to say.

"Yeah, so just...sorry." He said softly as he came up behind her.

She shrugged. "Okay." Their relationship really wasn't that mutual, they just clashed on a regular basis.

"We'll go back, see if they can help, come on." He slowly pushed the trolley until they were back at the corner, where he stopped and peeked around. Katherine hovered behind him, waiting for him to tell her something. But he didn't. Instead, his entire body had stiffened, and he sucked in a breath in shock.

"What? What do you see?" Katherine tried to edge impatiently around him, but he wouldn't move. Eventually she gave up, tugging hard on his arm until he turned back around. He looked angry, a storm in his eyes. She couldn't imagine anyone apart from Tessa that would cause that reaction.

But what he said next changed everything.

"Bonnie." He said tersely. His body was still wired and tense. "Bonnie Bennett. And, Damon, but that's no longer important."

She couldn't believe what she had heard. The anger that fueled her at that moment was unbelievable. The Bennett witch, who had stood there and watched as she was sucked away into oblivion, and hadn't lifted a finger. This must have been the luckiest coincidence she'd ever come across.

"She's dead."

"Oh, that she is." Silas smirked, releasing the forgotten trolley, letting it bounce quietly against the building wall. Katherine made to walk out, to shred Bonnie to pieces, but Silas stopped her.

"No, no, not yet. Maybe we could...mess around with them a little. Make them suffer." A small, evil smile played around Silas' lips, and she found herself enjoying it. Enjoying his dark, little theme. It was kind of cute.

"Where do I sign up?"

**~X~**

Yellow Ledbetter. Just two words. So simple, so easy, yet could be twisted in a different meaning altogether. One of danger.

She was surprised Bonnie hadn't found it sooner in that newspaper of hers, so she found it for her.

The look on Damon's face was priceless.

"I could-I could-" Silas gestured frantically, as he tried to express his delight over her _brilliant_ idea. She thought he would hug her, or at least stop making the pancakes every morning, but instead he kissed her.

Deeply.

With tongue.

She shouldn't have enjoyed it, but she just couldn't resist. So she closed her eyes, and just flowed into it, gripping the hand in her hair. She hadn't been kissed like _that, _in so long, and it felt good knowing it came from him.

It ended too soon, with a passion that swept through her, and left her terrified, yet wanting more.

He pulled away, still leaning in so close that she could kiss him again, his forehead pressed to hers.

"I had to do that at least once." He whispered, and then he turned around and walked away up the stairs, leaving her in a state of confusion and...emotion. An emotion she couldn't quite place.

And, just like that, it was over.

For now.

**~X~**

There were days, the same old days, where Katherine just didn't know what to do about it. About him.

It had been a week, since the...incident, but whenever she thought about it, she needed a drink.

So, often on days like these, she would raid the Gilbert's wine cellar, and then the neighbours, when they run out, and she would turn the stereo up loud, pour out an elegant glass of wine for herself, and think about him, as she swayed and danced to the music. A lot.

His kiss...she found herself wanting more of it than she should, and he'd left behind feelings in her that couldn't be erased. And it wasn't fair.

Death really sucked.

Because she _knew, _that Silas was substituting her for Amara, it wasn't hard to figure out, but she didn't care anyway. And that was what would destroy her the most.

So she let wine burn, as it slid down her throat in a blissful haze as his eyes sizzled holes in the back of her head, watching her, constantly.

His beautiful, beautiful, leaf-green eyes...

Katherine snapped out of it, all of a sudden aware that she had been staring at him, leaning forward, trying to see his face and his sparkly, smouldery eyes. And she did, as he looked up and saw her precarious position in mild shock, and the tiny sober part of her brain remembered to be embarassed and show her mortification in her hot, red cheeks. She was not a subtle drunk. Sadly.

"What?" He smirked, looking up from his map reading, and gulping down his glass of bourbon. He'd been trying to find a way into the tunnels where the ascendent thingy would align with the eclipse.

She smiled drowsily at him, his own smile chasing her embarrassment away. His face was _amazingly_ hot. How had she not seen how good-looking he was before? How could someone _be _that handsome, and she hadn't fully realised it yet? Even with Stefan, she hadn't quite comprehended it, though with her love for him she definitely should have. He should grow out a _moustache_. A moustache, on Silas. Wasn't that an evil guy sign? The mere image of moustache Silas made her giggle hysterically before she could control herself, and Silas looked at her sharply.

"How much did you drink?" He asked. He was almost smiling, nearly there.

She beamed back so widely her cheeks started hurting. "You're really pretty." She blurted out before she could stop herself. Alarm bells were ringing at the back of her head, but they were too dull for her to listen to them. Silas actually smiled this time, lips wordlessly pulling up in a beautifully sweet smile despite himself and straining at his cheek muscles as he leaned back in his chair.

"Like, proper beautiful. I swear, you're prettier than Stefan, and he's _really _pretty." Katherine rambled on, voice slurring, and she stumbled in her heels clumsily towards him. She frowned at her feet. When had she put on her heels? Everything was a blur right now. Just what she wanted it to be.

"Thank you, I think." Silas said, reaching out to grab her flailing arms as she hobbled towards him. If he hadn't, she would have fallen flat into his lap, and even drunk that would be something she could never live down.

"You should loosen up. You're being boooooring!" Katherine drew out the word as she scrabbled for a hold on his shirt, gripping his collar tightly. Something shifted in his eyes; she couldn't tell what, but she was almost sure it was something close to lust. He was just skimming his eyes over her body as she leaned on him, squirming to find a comfortable place in his lap, and he didn't seem to be listening, so she said it again. "Boooooring!" It sounded funny, and he laughed, his hands on her arms slowly sliding down to her waist, his gaze on her face, nearing, nearing, nearing, and she was suddenly all too aware of his hands, sparking electricity wherever he touched her. Oh, God. She swallowed nervously, her throat suddenly dry as her eyes flickered to his lips, mere inches away from brushing her own and igniting that deep, fiery passion inside her that she craved.

"Siiiilas." Katherine dragged his name out, testing it on her tongue, in a sharp, ragged whisper, as he slowly leaned closer, an inticing invite in his eyes, and in an instant she knew she wanted him, in that moment she wanted him more than anything she'd ever wanted in her entire life, and the intensity of it left her shaking, and caused her to shove him back and scramble out of his lap. No way was she drunk enough to be let down by disappointment. Damn it.

But eventually, he would be hers, and _damn_ that stupid doppelgänger prophecy if it separated them, because she was Katherine Pierce and she _always _got what she wanted. Even in death.

"No." She slurred, shaking her finger at him. He smirked again in amusement.

"No?"

"Yep. No." She shook her head at him vigorously. She was not going to sleep with him in Elena's house...uuurrgh, no. But someday, someday, they would go there.

_Not now, not yet, but one day, you will be mine._

**~X~**

Whatever had happened between them, he wouldn't speak of it again. And scaring the hell out of Bonnie and Damon was his primary focus, probably so he _couldn't_ talk about it.

It was frustratingly scary how much she wanted him now that she'd had him for a split second.

It was freakingly weird how much she enjoyed taking out that frustration on Damon's car with a poker, leaving it a completely smashed and battered version of what it once was.

And stealing his keys. That was fun too.

In the end, it didn't really matter. No matter what she did, she would never like the world she was stuck in for eternity.

Katherine needed to get home. She needed to see Stefan. She needed to see Nadia, although that was no longer an option.

So she would just have to make-do with what she had. An all powerful witch who she may or may not have the _tiniest _crush on, and who may or may not like her back, a vampire who couldn't drink blood here, and another witch who had recently given up all her magic, and probably no longer had it.

"I want to get home." She said aloud. Silas looked up at her from his grimoire. "Well, that's why we're trying to find the ascendant." He replied snidely. It was the first real acknowledgement he'd given her, even if it was a rude one.

"Yeah, I know, but I need someone who'll be able to work one hundred percent. Who can actually find it." She shot back snootily, turning away.

"Yeah, hello, perfect speciman of man right here." Silas waved at her, smirking. "If I can do a locators spell, then we can get it, go into a source of power i.e. underground, perform the spell in the light of the eclipse and _woala! _Done, back to life." He shrugged, as Katherine gaped at him open-mouthed. Whatever he had just said, it didn't sound easy, and to travel forward in time _and _get resurrected? It would take a hell of a lot of power.

"Can I do it? My dad was a traveler, I died as a human, I could help." Katherine suggested, despite not even beginning to grasp the basics of their path home.

"The more the merrier," Silas shrugged, and _how did he not realise her gaze on his lips?!_ "Bonnie died as the anchor to the Other Side, so I doubt she'll be much help."

She hoped he could do it, she needed to do it, more than anything else. Because, she had come to realise, that beyond whatever she was feeling, she had developed some bond of trust with him, however tenous, and she hadn't had that in a very long time.

It scared her most of all that she wasn't afraid of it, not even a little bit.

**~X~**

But they needed that ascendant. More than anything. So, begrudgingly, they would have to make themselves known to Damon and Bonnie in the hopes that they had more leads.

Though the way she marched away from him the fourth time that week didn't exactly inspire much confidence in Katherine, but she would have to try.

After the eclipse, they went into the shop, knowing full well that Damon and Bonnie wouldn't show up for another several hours. She grabbed a rolled up map from the back, whilst Silas raided the counter and came up with a handful of change. Although why he would need money if they were in a land with no other people to exchange it with, she didn't know.

She grabbed a bag of crisps, and grabbed a bottle of bourbon, then tossed a sprig of vervain in it for luck; she wouldn't put it past Damon to try and compel her away, and swigged a mouthful of it back. She may need to be slightly tipsy if having to deal with the both of _them_.

And Silas' erratic behaviour, apparently, since he had just dashed outside with the money, heading right for the merri-go-round right outside the shop. She watched, in light amusement, as he examined the instructions on the machine, then slotted the coins in one by one and kneeled down and started tapping some buttons on the battery box. How he'd figured that out, she would never know.

Hopefully, it was something good. Something to trick Bonnie and Damon, even if it _was_ a children's toy.

Silas suddenly stood up, looked over his shoulder, and hurried back into the shop over to her, looking immensely pleased with himself.

"What did you do?" Katherine asked, smiling as he grabbed another bottle of bourbon.

"Oh, that was just setting the merri-go-thing on a timer, so when Damon and Bonnie get here in," he looked at his watch, which couldn't possibly be correct in a place that constantly relived itself, but apparently was, "Forty minutes! Give or take," He took another sip of bourbon. "They'll be super freaked out and probably get into an argument about it, then Bonnie will storm off for the fourteenth time, and Damon will come here to drink it off, but his drinks will be filled with vervain."

Katherine frowned at him, a little weirded out by how much he knew about their behaviour patterns. He saw it, and he clucked his tongue, realisation dawning on him. "I really shouldn't know that."

"You really shouldn't." She agreed, walking into the back, and opening her crisps. She handed Silas a wooden chair, smirking as he rolled his eyes and stamped hard on one of the legs, splintering it and breaking it off. He picked it up and tossed the chair behind her, eyes gleaming predatorily at the sharp points at the end of the wooden leg, forming a home-made stake. Just for Damon, who she was almost sure she could see outside, arguing _again _with Bonnie.

"So, you know what to do?" He asked impatiently.

"Seriously? You're asking _me _what to do? The girl who always stays ten steps ahead?" Katherine asked him dubiously, hand on her hip.

"Yep, 'cause-" Silas was cut off by the door opening and the familiar stomp of Damon's boots scuffling towards the wine aisle. They both froze for a moment, then Silas dived for the gap between the two shelves of wine and beer, merging with the shadows, whilst Katherine made a straight beeline for the back room, deliberately throwing her bottle onto the floor. The glass smashed everywhere, creating a loud shattering noise that could _not _be missed, especially with vampire hearing, and she hid behind a long table, that suspiciously looked as though it had been used for breaks. It didn't take long for Damon to come walking tentatively down towards their aisle, peering round the corner, and staring at the splintered shards of glass scattering the floor with those _gorgeous _bright blue eyes that she admittingly had missed just a little bit.

Katherine stuck her hand into her crisp packet, then popping a crisp in her mouth and crunching as loudly as possible. She saw Damon, through the gap in the shelf in front of her, straighten in suspicion, and inch towards her. She smirked to herself. This was gonna be fun.

And then Damon turned the corner, finally spotting her, and the look of horror on his face was something she couldn't have even _begun _to imagine.

"Hello, Damon." She smiled sweetly. His mouth gaped open in shock and _wow, _she was really enjoying this. She only wished that she had a camera.

"Katherine." Was all he managed to choke out, as he continued to stare at her in an utter mask of resentment, surprise, and anger, and she just absorbed it all, basked in every moment of it. Because this probably wouldn't be happening again anytime soon.

"Miss me?" She smirked as Silas deftly stepped out from behind the shelf, right behind Damon, broken wooden chair leg in hand.

_Aah, _she smiled again to herself. This was going to be so much. This was what she had been waiting for. Justice would be served. For her daughter, for herself.

And vengeance had never tasted more sweeter on her tongue.

**To be continued...**

**Thanks for reading! Please review, and I am open to suggestions! :-) xx**


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I don't own tvd, it belongs to Julie Plec and L.J Smith, I am using their characters for my own story. No copyright infringement is intended.**

**Hi, I'm doing another one-shot that's based on one of **_**Lynyrd Lionheart's**_** stories; Odds and Ends, which is absolutely amazing! **_** s/9749733/1/**_

**I just wanted to know for my other oneshot, what is your fav name out of:**

**Bronwyn,  
Katrina,  
Carmel,  
Trish.**

**I will update Part three of **_**Beautiful Insanity **_**once I have at least 6 more votes! I really really need an answer! You will see why once I upload!**

**BTW, Silas sucked the cure out of Katherine and Amara sucked it out of Silas, but they didn't start ageing, and Stefan didn't kill Silas. Also, Stefan has already slept with Katherine and Nadia is still around in this fic.**

**Enjoy, and I hope you all enjoyed Christmas! :-) xx**

_**Desperate Love.**_

Men sucked.

Especially vampires.

Which was why Katherine was alone. Again. Stefan had left her with an amazing one-night stand, then started off some spiel about how he couldn't forgive her for the last hundred and forty-five years, and completely shattered her heart in the process, so now instead of happily playing 'girlfriend', she was drowning her sorrows in the Grill, with Matt happily supplying her with alcohol, and she couldn't stop replaying that night in her head. He'd riled her up, and she just couldn't unwind from it. At all.

Elena's high-pitched giggles weren't helping. Katherine glanced at her shadow, flirting with Damon, an uncomfortable Stefan off to the side playing pool with Caroline. Ugh. She didn't need Stefan anyway. She didn't. There. Done. Over. That simple, right?

Wrong. Because Katherine couldn't help but feel that the more she tried to convince herself that she didn't love Stefan, the more obsessed with him she became.

His love-sick gaze at Elena only made Katherine want to throw up all her alcohol, which was a _lot, _and she couldn't stand watching him pine over another woman that should have been her. _Could_ have been her, if she'd played her cards right. Elena was her replica, and Stefan fell for her because he'd fallen for Katherine. It made her blood boil, and if she'd still been a vampire, Elena's head would no longer be on her shoulders.

But instead of wasting energy on wishing for something she could no longer be, Katherine threw a ten dollar bill onto the bar for Matt's...hospitality, and somehow managed to stumble drunkenly out the door without breaking her heels. Lucky the Boarding House was within walking distance, because it would be getting a lot of drunk trashing tonight, particularly the bedrooms.

But when she stormed through the door, grumbling and muttering about Stefan (the evil snake), intent on drinking Damon's bourbon and invading his privacy, the last person she expected to see sitting on the living room couch was Silas.

"Drunk? Without me?" She could hear the smirk in his voice even though he wasn't facing her, and how he knew who she was was a complete mystery to Katherine in her drunken stupor.

"What, are _you_, doing here?" She slowly slurred out her sentence.

"So a guy can't make himself home in his descendant's mansion?" Silas turned around this time and stood up, mocking and amused. No, she did not like him. She didn't like Salvatore's in general.

"Nooo! I mean _here,_" Katherine gestured wildly with her hands trying to encompass being alive, but really was just making wide circles in the air. "You know."

He raised an eyebrow. "No, I don't know."

"Whole and alive!" Katherine exclaimed, throwing her arms out wide. "Should be...finding peace with...Amara, the prat in pink! After you drained me of my blood so you could off yourself. Sound familiar?" She tripped and stumbled past him, and climbed over the sofa, rolling into it and laying there. She never wanted to get up again. "Idiot." She slurred to herself, curling up. She heard him laugh, but it sounded pained to her ears.

"She killed herself. She left me." His voice shook on the last word, and he looked as though he were about to fall apart as Katherine scrutinised him.

"Well, all that doppelgänger prophecy nons- nonsense was crap anyway. Look at Stefan, still swooning over Elena, the brother breaker." She said bitterly. She had no idea why she was telling him all this, but it was spilling out of it's own accord.

"Aah, I see we're no longer talking about me. Problem in paradise, honey?" Silas sneered, and Katherine barely managed to cover her surprise. He was so _mean. _Not like Stefan at all, and it kind of got her on a high alert; maybe she needed that. Mean Stefan was someone she rarely got to see, and he was the only version she could save from himself.

The only version just like her.

"Yes! Stefan let me believe that we still had something, then he memorised something _out of a textbook _about how he could never forgive me, how it was," she lowered her voice, trying to imitate Stefan. "'A moment of weakness.'"

"Oh. So he dumped you and ran, did he? Can't say I see why."

Katherine squinted at him. That was the only time Silas had ever given her a compliment. Too bad it reminded her of Stefan, all over again.

"He dumped me with _amazing _memories that cannot be erased! And, I swear, whenever he says I hate you, or he'd say my name in that heavy, sarcastic tone, which is _a lot, _it really just makes me want to jump his bones! Uuurgh!" She flopped face-down back onto the sofa, not eager to refresh those particular memories.

"Oh, I had that. With Amara." He muttered wistfully. "She did _not _like me when we first met."

"Sounds like Elena and Damon." Katherine huffed out moodily.

He laughed harshly, and Katherine felt the sofa dip slightly as he sat down in front of her legs. "I don't think anyone's like _them._"

Katherine snorted, sitting up and moving her legs, tucking them towards her. "Nope. Stefan was much better than Damon ever was, so no-one in their right mind would have chosen Damon. He had this way of making me feel as though I'd flown to the moon, and like I was floating on cotton candy. He made me almost black out, I swear, that's how good the sex was." She rambled on, pouring herself a glass of Damon's bourbon. "You know what I mean?"

Silas smirked, leaning forward, and taking the bottle away. "Oh yes, Amara had her ways. Her hair was always straight, and she wore it in braids down her back, and I used to love watching it billow around her whenever she was laying down, whenever we were together, knowing only I got to see her that way...that always made me want her so much more. More than I should have." He took a long swig from the bottle, looking at her with longing in his eyes for the girl she could have been.

And if Katherine squinted in her alcohol induced sight, he was definetly handsome, and quirky, and sexy, and...Stefan. A Stefan she could have. So in her drunk, unrational brain, she decided to spontaneously be bold. In her lust for Stefan, her greed was getting out of hand, so she would settle for what she could get.

"So if I just straighten my hair..." She hinted cheekily, pulling a strand of her hair out until it was flat. "Would it make you want me?"

He merely smirked, and she instantly knew he knew what she meant. And the greedy glint in his eyes suggested that he'd like nothing more than that.

"That depends. If I were to call you _Katherine _in that 'heavy, sarcastic tone', would you want me?" He asked cheekily.

Yes. In that moment, she did. And she would have him, and he would have her, and it would be sweet for them both. "Shall we?" She smirked, standing up and motioning towards Damon's bedroom, where Elena's hair straighteners most likely recided. He politely held out a hand to her, the old-fashioned way.

She took it, winding her fingers through his; she had always been one for danger and excitement, and he smiled back at her. "We shall."

**~X~**

Tongues clashed together in tangled desperation, teeth mashed wildly in hot bursts of ecstasy, as the two stumbled onto the bed in a desperate tangle of limbs. The shoes came off. Then the shirts were next, (or rather, Katherine completely ripped Silas' cleanly in half, whilst he burst all her buttons at the seams in a heated, impulsive passion) as she sloppily planted kisses all over his neck and face and ran her hands all over his chest in a silent worship, as he fiddled not-so- expertly with her bra.

"I've got it...it's here, somewhere." Silas mumbled between kisses as he fumbled with the clasp, one hand still buried in her now hay-straight hair. "There you go." He finally managed to twist it off and throw the bra to the other side of the room, but not before openly raking his eyes appreciatively over the naked half of her body, that strangely made her feel complimented, rather than disgusted, based on the almost worshipful way he was doing so. But everything she had been thinking about floated straight out her mind as he gently ran his fingers over her chest, skimming her nipples, and she arched into him, wanting more, and he kissed her again, pressing her into the welcoming softness of the mattress on her bare back. She responded in kind, winding her fingers into his hair, whilst pulling off his belt, but abruptly broke away from him as he started fumbling for her trousers, some little reminder that she was human, and could now very easily be impregnated, flashing in her alcohol soaked mind.

"Silas! Wait, do you um-" she hesitated in embarrassment. "Do you have-"

In answer, he reached for his pocket, and she saw the flash of a small, metallic packet in between his two fingers, and she breathed out in relief.

"Thank God."

"Thanks, I'm not _that _unexperianced with the twenty-first century you know." He tore the wrapper off with his teeth as he unbuttoned her trousers and tugged them down, and she was too busy thinking how _sexy _that was, that she barely even realised what he had done until she felt the cool air rush at her bare legs.

She couldn't help but remember every little detail after that. There was something about him that not just hung her over the edge, but then pushed her completely off it. It was a wonderful new sensation she had never experienced before, which was why she didn't mind, not one bit when Amara's name was the last word tumbling off his lips before his world came gleefully crashing down around him.

After all, looking deep enough into his eyes, she wasn't exactly screaming his name either.

**~X~**

She came home very early the next morning, still half-drunk with a splitting headache and with the heel of her shoe broken off, disorientated, yet satiated.

But unfortunately, Nadia knew the walk of shame when she saw it

"Who were you with? Why didn't you call me back?" She demanded.

"Relax, Nadia. You're not my mother. I'm yours." Katherine beamed drunkenly at her daughter, before tottering up the stairs. "It really wasn't my fault. Silas, really. He kept me up all night after I'd swallowed an entire bottle of bourbon, and who was I to say no to a little partying before bedtime?"

"_Silas?" _Nadia was incredulous, and Katherine knew she had to get away before Nadia ripped her to shreds, and locked herself in her room.

"The man who sucked all your blood out of your system to cure himself, who tried to get me to shoot myself, and who threw his doppelgänger into a safe at the bottom of a quarry. You _slept _with him?" Nadia sounded incredulous.

"Katherine!" She rapped loudly on the door, giving Katherine even more of a hangover than before, making her feel as though drums were rattling and dancing around inside her skull. She placed a pillow over her head to drown out the noise, knowing Nadia wouldn't break down the door-it was extremely difficult to replace, and silently gave a half-prayer to Elena for giving her the cure that dulled her hearing so.

Eventually, her daughter gave up and stopped knocking with a heavy sigh. "I hope you know what you're doing, Katherine."

But when hadn't she? She was always one step ahead. Her and Silas' relationship was constructed purely out of the stagnant reason of replacements to distract one another, and if there was anything Katherine was good at, it was controlling men, and having them, and her own feelings, right where she wanted them.

Hopefully as a human that hadn't changed, especially now that she had made a deal with the Devil himself.

**~X~**

One month.

She'd been sleeping with Silas for one month, and suddenly, everyone knew. It was everyone's concern. She didn't know why, after all this time, how they suddenly knew Of course, she had kind of been hoping that Stefan had been paying an unhealthy interest to the topic, but he really hadn't looked at all that bothered.

Caroline, however, seemed to be obsessed with it, and for some reason, that in turn made Elena equally curious about her...dalliances.

"So, Silas?" Caroline asked, disdain in her voice. Katherine snapped out of her doppelgänger daydream and irritably sighed.

"Yes, not that it's any of your business." She said looking at Caroline, who had a gossipy gleam in her eye not unlike the one Katherine would have had when she was a girl, with equal disdain. "And don't worry, Elena," she glanced at the brunette, "I won't be taking up residence with Stefan anytime soon, so you needn't be bothered in my affairs. After all, what would you do if the doppelgänger prophecy was proven wrong, and you no longer had Stefan to yourself, whilst in the arms of his brother?"

Elena growled irritably, and stepped towards her, fangs out, but then seemed to remember who exactly it _was _that Katherine was sleeping with, and stopped in her tracks, instead deciding to speak the cutting words she'd wanted to use in violent actions. "He's a monster. He's going to destroy you, you know. He destroys everything."

Katherine just smirked, knowing it would rile Elena up even more. "It's nice to know you all care. Even if you're all deluded hypocrites."

Caroline sighed, and sat down next to her. "We worked together, we were frenemies for a while, right? So I'm just going to say, as a frenemy, that Silas is the person who tried to kill you! He sucked your blood out of your system to be cured, and I heard you shot him at one point. For any relationship, don't you think that's a rocky foundation to build upon?"

Katherine sneered at her. Caroline admittingly, was alright, but she didn't need love advice from a baby vampire about someone she wasn't even in love with. "Thanks for the concern, Care bear, but there _is_ no relationship. Just...stress release." And it was. Sleeping with Silas had done wonders for Katherine in the past two weeks, and had calmed her down considerably. She didn't really think of Stefan without jumping his bones anymore, and she could honestly say that for the first time in a long time, she felt free.

Caroline raised her eyebrows, looking at Katherine with a rather shallow expression that she hadn't used in a long time. "That's not going to end well."

"Nothing ever does in Mystic Falls. If you're 'worried' about me getting rejected, don't bother, I've grown accustomed to it." Katherine replied bitingly, standing up from the table, preparing to leave, but before she did, she turned back to Elena, feeling the need to defend Silas for some reason.

"Oh, and, unlike Damon, Silas isn't a monster. Granted, he's a dick, but he hasn't actually tried to ruin me or my family for personal reasons." With the final word, and the satisfaction at the look on Elena's face, Katherine spun around and marched proudly out of the Grill, head higher than it had been in a long time.

It was only then that it occurred to her that it had been Silas she had been daydreaming about, not Stefan.

For some reason, it felt terrifyingly right.

**~X~**

"Katerina." A smirk, and a flick of her hair, and that was all it took to lift her spirits.

She reluctantly smiled, although how he managed to do that with a name that represented all things bad in her human life. "Don't call me that. Stefan said my name with such hatred, and my other name is someone I've completely forgotten how to be."

Silas raised his eyebrows. "Ookay then, dare I ask where you're going on a fine day like this without me, then Kitty-Kat?" He smirked smugly at the new nickname as his eyes not-so-innocently flitted down to her chest, where her low-cut top ended, and she rolled her eyes. Typical. Apparently it didn't matter how old men were, most of them still couldn't resist checking women out.

"Watch it, perv." She crossed her arms over her chest, but couldn't help smiling at him. "And, to answer your question, I need to go shopping. Unfortunately, I no longer live on blood bags, instead, now I live off of a payroll and pretty much my own daughter. And I didn't think men normally liked shopping, so..."

"Well, I wouldn't be a gentleman if I didn't help you out with your shopping now, would I?" Silas said innocently, holding out his arm for her to take. She rolled her eyes again at his childish acts, but tucked her arm into his anyway.

She ended up having fun. The best time she'd had in a long time. She taught Silas about aisles and trolleys, freezers and shelves, (turned out, he'd never actually set foot inside a supermarket before) and it helped her see that being human wasn't actually all that bad.

No regrets.

"That was fun." Silas laughed loudly, ignoring the rude glare a cashier shot him, and throwing an arm around her shoulders. He'd been very over-excited, tossing in food from every aisle in the trolley, and she'd tried to be annoyed, but somehow ended up having the most fun she'd had in a long time without taking her clothes off.

"So, come on, you wanna go invade the Boarding House and watch _10 Things I Hate About You_?" He asked, smirking at him secretively.

She smiled up at him. "I never would have pegged you for a Heath Ledger fan."

Silas shrugged. "It just happened to be on the TV one time, and I ended up watching it. He and Julia Stiles had good chemistry. So, what do you say?"

She looked up at him, and all of a sudden, her heart literally _skipped a beat _as he grinned at her, and she subconsciously remembered agreeing, trying to shove the feeling away, before he steered her off, shopping in hand, still completely steeped in shock at the spark that was awakening inside of her.

It shouldn't have been like that, Katherine knew, but she fell into it as though in a daze, and it felt too natural to stop. And it was only afterwards, as she lay, ridiculously happy and worn-out in his arms, that she realised with a horrible shock, that he hadn't cried out for Amara's name against her hair.

Her perfectly, naturally _wavy _hair.

Worse than that, she hadn't called him, or seen Stefan at all in his eyes when she looked at him today. Or last week, and she couldn't quite remember when that had happened.

So, Katherine Pierce did what she always did, in a bid to stop herself getting hurt, when her life was flying out of control.

She ran.

**~X~**

He found her after a week of hiding out in Caroline's dorm room.

"Where've you been? In case you hadn't noticed, I practically blew up your phone calling you."

"I noticed." She replied coolly, flipping the page of her magazine and feigning interest in it, because annoyingly, she couldn't help but pay attention to him, and she didn't want him to know that.

"Then why are you avoiding me?"

"I'm not avoiding you. Didn't you know? Being a mother to Nadia _and _a friend to Caroline is _extremely_ hard work."

Silas sighed, and then walked over to her and sat opposite her. "We were having fun. What's wrong with that?"

Katherine flipped her magazine shut. "The problem, Silas, is that we were supposed to be replacements. That's it. Replacements for the people we loved, but couldn't have. Just carbon-copies. And that was fine, it was great that way. But-"

"Things changed." He interrupted her. Katherine gaped at him in surprise, and he shrugged. "Did you really think I wouldn't notice? When you stopped calling me him, and I stopped seeing Amara in your eyes? That's natural. People's relationships evolve, Katherine. We change when we're together, we become better people, as long as we have emotions, we could never have had a proper functioning relationship in the way we did for long, it's part of being human. Why won't you let that happen with us?"

"Because nothing like that ever works out for me! Stefan, Elijah, Nadia's father, everyone left me whenever I got too close. You weren't meant to get too close. You weren't meant to make me laugh and feel alive again, or go shopping with me, or hold my hand when we watched movies, Silas!" Katherine snapped, exhaling heavily. He was _not _making this easy on her. He just didn't understand.

"So it's easier to just pretend it never meant anything, and just go back to the way things were. Where I hated you for drinking all my blood, and you despised me because I shot you and was a _gag reflex_ to you. Where we didn't start behaving like a couple because I don't want an established relationship. I didn't initiate this looking for one with you."

"I know," Silas replied tautly, looking rather wooden. "I know we didn't want relationships, but I think you now do, and you're too afraid to admit it to yourself." He stood up, and she suddenly felt the urge to beg him to stay. "I also know that if you didn't have feelings for me, or didn't want to be with me then this wouldn't be a problem to begin with. I'm not the monster you all thought I was. And if you realise that, then give me a call."

And before Katherine could stop him, he was out the door, and gone. Gone before she could even work out what she wanted, how to respond to his speech that was more or less a declaration of his feelings for her as clearly as the words _I love you._

This always happened in the movies, pretty much in _10 Things I Hate About You, _and if there was one thing Katherine learned from movies like that, it was that it never worked out. Whatever they did, friends with benefits, one-night stands, the morale of the story was almost always about falling in love, conquering all, realising who your true soul mate is.

And God, she hated it when the movies were right.

**~X~**

Another week passed, she went back to Nadia's and she still didn't speak to Silas. Though strangely, distance really does make the heart grow fonder, and it only made her miss him more and more, despite her profanities that letting herself love him would only end badly.

Eventually, her desire to see him won through thick and thin. Time to admit, she'd fallen for him, and his purpose as a replacement toy in her life had completely gone south.

Pressing his number that she somehow knew off by heart into the keypad, she pressed her phone to her ear and listened to the phone dial, impatiently waiting for him to pick up.

"Took you long enough, Kitty-Kat." His voice, however irritatingly smug it sounded, made her breath hitch and her mouth curve upwards in an instant smile in a way Stefan never could, even if he tried.

"Pick me up tonight at six. You're going to take me out to a diner, anyplace but the Grill, and not some shabby one-star restaurant-I have standards. Then at eight, we'll go to the cinema and we'll watch _Endless Love _because admittingly, I'm a sap for romantic films and so are you." She said all in one breath.

He laughed. "You're telling me to pick you up for a date? Didn't we kind of skip that part?"

"Yes, we were a little...backward in our methods, but that's what made it better, and I think we've established that I'm no longer Amara, and you're not Stefan." She shrugged. Imminently, she wasn't taking no for an answer.

"Alright. See you at six then, Katherine." This time, unlike Stefan, his tone wasn't sarcastic or bitter, it was a soft lull as he rolled her name around his tongue as though it were some sort of delicious dessert, and it _really _made her knees weak.

"Don't forget, make it worthwhile." She reminded him. "Because I'm not wearing my best dress for McDonald's."

"Only the best for you." Silas muttered.

"I'm sure I can only handle perfection." She shot back, grinning, before hanging up, and gleefully preparing for her first date in sixty seven years.

**~X~**

"Don't wait up." Katherine said to Nadia as she hurried down the stairs, grabbing her make-up bag from the side-table.

But Nadia stood up. "Where are you going? And really? Dressed like that?"

Katherine sighed, and reluctantly turned back around to her daughter, fighting the urge to laugh at her protectiveness. She was so sweet, and worried, but Katherine loved her for it. "I have some...unfinished business to attend to."

"Silas?"

"Silas." Katherine confirmed, heading towards the door.

"Okay." Nadia pursed her lips, clearly not impressed with that idea.

Katherine pondered for a moment, hurriedly wishing for Silas to arrive, so she wouldn't have to know the answer the question now buzzing around her head. Eventually, she gave up and turned back to Nadia"Urgh, tell me, what is it that's bothering you? Huury up, I've got ten minutes."

"Um," Nadia started, looking a little anxious. "It's just...you seem rather serious with him, you've never done that before, so I was wondering...and-uh..."

"Nadia, I've got to go in, like, two minutes. If there's something you need to say to me-"

"Is Silas going to become my step-dad?"

The question completely startled Katherine. She'd never really ever thought that far ahead when it came to him. Or to anyone. She'd never loved strongly enough to consider marriage, which was why Nadia's father had proven to be such a failure when it came to marriage, and she'd had a baby out of wedlock. Was Silas someone she would finally be with forever?

A honk from a car outside jolted her from her thoughts, and indicated that her date had arrived. In a split second decision, she turned back to Nadia, and smiled.

"We'll see."

**Any suggestions, anyone?**


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: I don't own tvd or the characters, they belong to Julie Plec and L.J Smith. I have gotten inspiration from **_**Friends **_**also, and have borrowed some lines from the show, where are the creative use of the writers, not me, but this story is mine. No copyright infringement is intended.**

**Just a steferine one-shot, as requested, where Caroline and Silas, an unlikely duo, decide to team up and try to get Katherine and Stefan back together. A little attempt at humour. Btw, in this, Silas and Amara are still alive, human, and together. This is just me wondering what would have happened if they hadn't died, and if Stefan and Katherine still hated each other, mixed with humour and I came up with this.**

"So, Caroline." Silas said, sliding into the booth opposite her by the window, a wide smile on his face due to the phone call he had just received. "Mission Staferine is under way?"

"Mission _Steferine. _Jeez, if you're going to work with me, at least know what you're shipping." Caroline rolled her eyes as she dumped her notebook onto the table.

"I trust you brought yours?"

"My what?" Silas asked, clueless.

"Your notebook!" Caroline exclaimed in exasperation. She clapped her hand to her forehead. "It's like teaching a kindergarten how to write." She muttered to herself, before meticulously scanning the room for her favourite-to-be couple, unsuccessful, since they were on opposite sides of the room to each other, and she started scribbling down notes furiously. She glanced at the empty seat next to Silas.

"Wait, where's Amara?"

Silas looked rather haughty. "Oh, she decided that our mission to push our doppelgängers together was a total waste of time, was unfair and unkind, and has refused to participate."

"Oh." Caroline was rather put out. She knew that planning this with a suicidal maniac who was obsessed with destiny was going to be difficult, so she had been relying on Amara to keep Silas calm, and to stop him from getting out of control, but now that seemed unlikely.

"Well, anyway, Stefan needs to get over Elena, and Katherine needs to get over Elijah's sorry ass, and, Stefan asked me to set him up with someone. They're perfect for each other!"

"Yeah, so how exactly are we going to do this? Stefan and Katherine detest each other, if we set them up on dates, it will drive them further apart." Silas munched on his salad that Matt had just brought over.

Caroline frowned, chewing thoughtfully on her pen. "Well, Katherine asked me if I knew anyone, and I was going to set her up with Enzo purely for the sake of it, but then if they hit it off, both being murderous psychopaths, then that would drive Katherine and Stefan further apart, instead of together, sooo..."

"We could set them up on bad dates!" Silas exclaimed. Then he frowned. "Hang on, how do we do that? Do we just go up to someone who looks like a down-beat loner and ask them if they no longer wanna be single?"

Caroline shot him a dirty look. "No! We ask people we work with, go to college with, etc. if they're interested in a date." Then she paused. "Wait, that won't work out for us if they actually get on, you know, the whole, impossible couples thrive and all that? So..."

"Ooh! Ooh! We could set them up, in the same time and place, but not actually get them dates!" Silas grinned excitedly as Caroline wrote it down.

"Not bad, you actually came up with a good idea." She smirked, watching Silas' face darken in indignation.

"I have good ideas! The immortality spell? That got Stefan and Katherine here, which brings us to a similar purpose of bringing them together today!"

"Yeah, what about deciding to destroy the Other Side to be with Amara, but she was still alive?"

"I didn't know that at the time! And besides, who wants to be stuck in a place _Qetsiyah _created?"

"What about killing Bonnie's dad? That was really rude, you know."

"In my defense, if Katherine hadn't gone AWOL, then I wouldn't have had to test my compulsion on those people. Besides, I drained her for the cure and didn't kill her, so she didn't need to run! So really, that one's on her." Silas argued, smiling innocently.

Caroline sighed irritably. He always managed to confuse and annoy her. "There's just no arguing with you. Anyway, here's what we'll do; I'll tell Stefan he has a blind date here tomorrow at four, and you'll tell Katherine the same thing. Got it?"

"Yeah," Silas nodded. "But what happens if this goes wrong? Everyone likes you, they'll just suspect _me_ of coming up with this mad plan and influencing you, and I don't suppose you've realised, but Stefan isn't exactly partial to me these days, and I'm not exactly immune to several methods of torture or any number of mortal ways to die. All he really needs to do is grab me and shove me in that safe, and then get that Liv witch to-"

"Okay, got it! Well, you needn't worry, my young padder one, because, number one," Caroline held up a finger. "Nobody here aside from Amara, oddly enough Katherine, and occasionally me, really likes you, so there's really no difference, number two, this plan will be so fool-proof and dastardly clever that it won't be found out, and number three, I have a fail-safe." She paused for effect. "New Orleans. It's where Klaus is, and he fancies me, mutually respects Stefan, and detests Katherine, so all you have to do is pretend to be Stefan _if _this plan fails."

"That's a big _if._" Silas said, glancing behind her. "Because although I ship them, it's going to take a lot to get those two together." He pointed, and Caroline turned around to see Stefan now trying to play pool, and Katherine, who had been sitting at the table next to him before he had arrived, waiting for Caroline, who had unceremoniously ditched her, both exchanging rather harsh words along the lines of 'brother-breaker', and 'evil Klaus minion.'

_Honestly, _Caroline thought, rolling her eyes. Those two were so immature. Fortunetly, she believed in the doppelgänger epic love, and when Caroline believed in something, she would push until she got it. Besides, those two were really just hiding their feelings for each other, Caroline was sure of it.

"Silas." She stated in her best snobby I-know-better-than-you-in-this-day-and-age-voice. "Those two are just hiding their passion for each other, you'll see, I know my chemistry, and those two have buckets of it." She watched as Katherine stood up, and pushed past an annoyed Stefan, dramatically flinging the door open, heading towards his car parked just outside, looking suspiciously vengeful. Yes, their hateful glares also contained lust and passion, she was sure of it.

Silas frowned at her. "What the hell does _chemistry_ have to do with love? That's like, atoms, and blowing up things and stuff, isn't it?"

"Oh, for God's sake, as in, _feelings _for each other chemistry, dumbass." Caroline rolled her eyes impatiently.

"Well, they should come up with another word for it. And if it's anything like actual chemistry, where you mess around with potassium too much, then you're screwed." Silas said plaintively.

Caroline exhaled in frustration at his impatience. "I know what I'm doing," She added, standing up and heading towards the door after Katherine. "The twenty-first century love life is my domain, and I'm telling you, they're silently begging for someone to push them together. Really, it's easier than it-HOLY_ CRAP! _KATHERINE! LET GO OF THAT TYRE CHANGER! You _do not_ want to be paying for Stefan's car insurance in your poorly acquired human state!"

"Yeah," Silas snorted into his coffee as Stefan, looking livid, hurried outside to his dented windshield, hurling obscenities at his to-be soulmate, Caroline already outside, tugging the tyre changer from an unruly Katherine.

"Really, easier than it looks."

**~X~**

Katherine didn't know why she'd agreed to this _at all_. She'd never been one for blind dates, but she'd kinda thought that maybe she could stop thinking about Elijah, and her confusing feelings for Stefan and start focusing on someone that might actually gave a damn.

But, really? In the _Grill_, of all places. Ugh. No. Definitely not going to go well.

And Stefan was here. Fantastic. Honestly, if she'd just been allowed to smash his car, then maybe he wouldn't be here. Maybe she wouldn't have loved him as much as she had, maybe she wouldn't hate that he hated her so much.

Pushing away those other thoughts, she plonked herself down at her reserved table, which was unfortunately reserved right next to Stefan's, impatiently looking at her watch. Great. Fifteen minutes of hanging around the door, no sign of mystery man, and already she was beginning to think that this night wasn't going to end well. Another few awkward minutes passed, before Stefan finally decided to open his mouth and speak to her.

"Hey, you seen my date?" Stefan asked rigidly.

_Okay, _Katherine nodded to herself. Five monosyllabic words that didn't involve shouting. That was progress, right?

"No, you seen mine?"

Stefan shrugged. "Didn't know you had a date."

"Oh, just that, Silas told me you knew who my date was." Katherine said, shifting in her seat and looking around.

"Hmm." Stefan nodded. "That's, uh, weird. Caroline told me that _you _knew who my date was." He frowned, looking confused and Katherine had no doubt that those two were up to something, she just couldn't figure out what. Her phone pinged, and she scrambled for it, eager for an excuse to get away from the awkward conversation.

"Oh, I have a text from Silas! Maybe he can explain himself." Katherine muttered, clicking the inbox.

_RemMbe,r tryt o hae aciv val conVsat ion withima nd kEe p his carrinact itty !_

Katherine squinted at the screen. Useless. Why on earth was he speaking in gibberish? Did he even know how to use a phone? How was she supposed to read _that?_

Her phone pinged again, and she irritably scrolled back through her messages. Silas would be dead by the end of the night, she was very sure of that.

_Oops, I meanremember, tryto have acivilconversation wit hhim and keephis car intactthis timekitty! Howdo y ou use thisstuupid autocorrect ?_

Katherine sighed, clenching her phone angrily. That wasn't much better either, just another annoying nickname added to the growing list. She turned her phone off, deciding Silas' help was pretty non-existent, and looked around. Was he here? Maybe he could explain himself before she died of boredom.

And besides, how could he _not _know how to use autocorrect?

**«X»**

"Has she replied yet?" Caroline asked, sipping her coffee shake.

Silas tapped his phone repeatedly so hard that Caroline was afraid he was going to break it. "No, I think she's in a mood because I sent her two of them sexts!"

Caroline clapped a hand over his mouth in horror. "Ssh! You mean _texts,_ you moron!" Caroline hissed, smiling innocently at people walking past, giving them strange looks.

Silas just looked lost. "What's the difference?"

"Oh my God! We are so not having this discussion right now." Caroline muttered. "Let's go in the-oh my God, look it worked! They're in the Grill! The plan worked!" She exclaimed, heading towards the window, where inside a blissfully unaware Stefan and Katherine were fortunetly not ripping each other's head's off. Well, at the moment.

"Huh, we actually did it." Silas said in shock, wandering over to Caroline. "Yes! We-we can be a match-making service!" He cheered, peering through his binoculars at the two. "High five, bestie!" Silas and Caroline clapped hands together excitedly.

"Wow, I really thought this would fail. Maybe you didn't text after all." Caroline smirked, pressing her hands against the glass, leaning forward.

Silas nodded. "Yeah, about that, just out of interest, how do you use autocorrect?"

**«X»**

"Wow, so, the first dates we've had that are actually normal, busted." Stefan laughed.

Katherine giggled, feeling slightly more relaxed. "Huh, just typical. Actual human dates, something normal turns out weird." Her smile froze as a horrifying theory formed in her mind. When she said it like that...

"Wait, don't you think it's a bit strange that my date Silas set up, and yours arranged by Caroline didn't even show up? Both on the same night? And we were supposed to meet in the same place?"

"What, you don't think that was intentional, do you?" Stefan asked. "I mean, Caroline and Silas working together? They'd kill each other."

She laughed. "Both neurotic, impulsive, controlling...I dunno, it could go both ways..."

Stefan smiled, and said something back, but Katherine was too preoccupied with something in the window, the dark shape watching her.

"Wait, _what _is that?"

**«X»**

"Ooh, ooh!" Silas tugged on Caroline's arm. She whipped back around from talking to her amused mother, binoculars now in hand. "What?"

"Staferine is happening!" Silas squealed excitedly.

"It's _Steferine_!" Caroline hissed, looking back over at him incredulously, but grinned manically when she saw the two chatting, Katherine actually _smiling _at him, apparently enjoying a civil conversation.

"Aaaw, just look at them, they're falling in love all over again." Caroline gushed. "We're geniuses!"

"Yeah, they're actually getting along! On purpose!" Silas grinned.

"They're never gonna figure it out! I told you so!"

**«X»**

"Oh my God," Katherine said, leaning forward. Her eyes weren't deceiving her, there was something there, behind the window. Two silhouettes were watching them through the window, a weird pole thing attached to one of their eyes. In fact, that person looked a lot like...

Her jaw dropped, and she tugged on Stefan's arm. "Is that _Silas_? And Caroline?" She asked Stefan, pointing at the window. He turned around. "What's he doing with those binoculars?" Stefan muttered, looking as equally shocked as Katherine, standing up and approaching the door, Katherine on his heels.

Yes, this night was definitely going to end badly.

And yes, she was going to kill Silas.

**«X»**

"Aah," Silas muttered nervously as Katherine frowned at him. Her mouth suddenly opened in realisation and indignation, and she tugged Stefan's arm and pointed at them. "Um, they're looking at us, we've been spotted! Oh, Caroline, they look really mad, I think they've figured it out, oh dear, our position's been breached, what's the code word-um, Caroline, _abort_, abort mission Steferine! We've been busted, I repeat-Caroline?"

But Caroline was already legging it, pushing through the crowd, running past the Grill, leaving him in the dust and shrieking at the top of her lungs. "Every woman for themselves! Run!"

"You ditcher!" She heard Silas yell, outraged, before taking off after her, as Stefan and Katherine rose from the table, heading towards them. "Wait, run where?" He shouted after her.

"New Orleans!"

**I dunno, this was a bit rushed...Should I continue this? Please review, and tell me what you think.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Hello! This is a Kilas two-shot. It's not a cross-over, but I've done the Dr Who Angels Take Manhattan "Together Or Not At All" Scene, but without dr who characters or the Weeping Angels and I have changed it slightly. Sorry if this doesn't make any sense.**

**I know I've already posted this as a two-shot, but I wanted more reviews on it, sad I know :-) xx**

**Disclaimer: I don't own Doctor Who, most of this scene belongs to Moffat, Russel , and other Dr who writers. The tvd characters belong to Julie Plec and L.J Smith. No copyright infringement is intended.**

They both burst through the fire escape door, clambering onto the roof, trying to escape the incessant chanting of the travellers.

Katherine struggled to breathe, her vision clouded. She hated being human. She hated being a pawn for the travellers to destroy magic. She hated being a doppelgänger.

She couldn't think straight. She didn't know how they'd found them in New York of all places. But they had, and now she, Silas, and Elena and Stefan were all paying the price. It had been a trap. And they had fallen so mercifully into their hands, right where the travelers wanted them.

The travellers wanted all their blood; the more the merrier, according to Silas. They wanted to drain them of all of their blood and use it to destroy the vampires, and anything to do with magic, which was pretty much everything not man-made.

The mere thought of it made her tremble in fear, though she wouldn't ever admit it. So she and Silas had abandoned the others to try to escape. The two hadn't ever been close, but from the way he looked at her, she could tell his true feelings.

He loved her. She didn't know why, but she knew he did because that was the way Stefan used to look at Elena when they were dating. She had ignored him most of the time, mainly trusting him as far as she could throw him. They were alike though. Katherine had never met anyone who was so similar to her in all her life. She shoved him away, afraid of getting hurt by the former Big Bad, like with Elijah. Just like she did with everyone she had ever cared about.

Classic to the end. She thought bitterly, feeling a twinge of guilt at her selfish act at abandoning the others, her daughter, before shutting the door behind her. It had no lock, so all she could do was watch it.

Silas ran over to the edge of the roof and looked down, peering over.

"Is there a way down?" she asked him, keeping a wary eye on the door.

"Uh...no. But there's a way out." he muttered nervously.

She heard scraping and anxiety flared in her gut.

"What are you doing?" she asked, still looking at the door.

"Oh." he murmured.

"Silas, what are you doing?" Katherine whipped around. To her horror she saw him standing on the edge of the roof.

"Silas. Stop it!" she walked over to him.

"You'll die." she was surprised to hear tears in her voice. In the few months she had known him, had she really grown to care about him enough to stop him saving her? Saving them all?

"Yeah, the one time I'm actually going to be able to do it. Would you look at that." he shrugged, holding out his arms to maintain his balance.

"Just come down, please. We'll figure something out." she pleaded, her stomach filling with dread. This couldn't be how it ended. Not now.

"This is the right thing to do. This will work. If I die now, the doppelgänger blood becomes useless, this place the travellers built to trap us ceases to exist. So, do what you always do. Save yourself and survive. Kill me." Silas said harshly and swallowed, the tremor in his voice betraying his fear.

She was stunned. That was what he thought of her? That she was stone-cold, and only cared for herself? She didn't know why that bothered her since everyone had always said it.

He shook his head, as though disappointed. "Great. The one time you can't manage it."

He was right. She couldn't. She knew she wouldn't be able to live with herself if he died by her hand, her gut instinct was telling her to keep holding onto him.

Never let him go.

Suddenly Silas wobbled. Katherine reached out for him, heart in her throat, terrified for him, but he managed to regain himself.

"Oh, God." she breathed out, relief and fear mingling inside her.

Silas reached out and took her hand, placing it on his chest. She tried to ignore the pleasant, tingling sensation she felt when touching him, and forced herself to focus on the dilemma at hand.

"Katherine, I'm going to need a little help here." Silas let go of her hand and threw his arms out to his sides, looking up, preparing himself for the fall.

"Just stop it!" she cried, bordering on hysterical. She was panicking; suddenly realising all too late and all too much at once that a life without him was not a life at all. Just like the last five hundred years of her existence.

"No, just think it through. This will work. This will kill the travellers. Trust me, I am one." Silas said confidently.

"It will kill you, too." she fretted, clutching his shirt tightly, twisting it.

"Will it?! This place would be erased from time, never exist. If this place never existed, what did I fall off?" Silas cried out.

"You think you'll just come back to life?" she laughed nervously, twisting the shirt tighter, her knuckles turning white. What would she do if he didn't?

"I desiccated for two thousand years, I think I can manage resurrection." he said dryly.

"Silas!" she whispered sharply, but he cut off her argument.

"And, anyway, what else is there? Running for the rest of our lives? Watching you have to endure that after Klaus? Katherine, please. If you want to live, then trust me and push." he spread his arms out further, fingers splayed apart, bracing himself.

She clutched his shirt in a vice-like grip, nearly tearing it.

"I can't." she whispered.

"You have to!" he said crossly.

"Could you?" Katherine snapped, frustrated. She was almost scared to hear his answer.

"If it was me, could you do it?"

He looked down at her, a tender expression on his face. Her stomach filled with butterflies.

"To save you, I could do anything." he smiled softly.

Any doubt that she didn't love him vanished with those seven words. If he could do it, then so could she.

For him.

After all, he wasn't the only suicidal doppelgänger around.

Releasing her hold on his shirt and holding her arms out near him in case he fell, she slowly inched her way onto the edge on her knees and hands in a sudden, overwhelming act of bravado. She carefully stood up from her kneeling position, inches away from his shocked stare.

"Prove it." she smirked.

"No, I can't take you, too." Silas whispered. He clearly hadn't been expecting this.

"You said we'd come back to life. 'Money where your mouth is' time."

"Katherine-"

"Shut. Up." she interrupted, grabbing his hands and placing them on her waist before she lost her nerve.

"Together. Or not at all." She steeled herself. This felt right. More right than anything she had done before. And it only fuelled her determination to go down with him even more.

She looked into his bright green eyes. Somehow, whether it was in the light of death or not, she found they were more beautiful than Stefan's had ever been.

Distantly, she heard the roof door slam open, as Stefan, Elena, Damon, Caroline, Jeremy, Bonnie and Nadia all tumbled onto the roof. They'd finally cottoned on. But they were too late. She couldn't see all their faces clearly, but she could imagine they all bore shocked expressions. Katherine felt guilt twist in her gut like a knife again when she thought of Nadia. She was abandoning her daughter all over again.

But it was worth it if it meant she could see her again.

"What the _hell_ are you doing?!" shouted Stefan, sounding incredulous.

"Saving your lives, you all good with that are you?" Katherine reached up and cupped Silas' face with one hand, whilst sliding the other round to his back, near the nape of his neck. His arms had tightened around her waist, and he was wearing that tender expression again. She couldn't tear her eyes from it.

"You should all know by now. It's called love."

"Katherine." Nadia whispered in a choked tone, hurrying toward her. The others remained frozen, their disbelieving expressions showing that they were trying to figure out if this was really happening.

There was no backing out now.

Silas' breathing quickened. Moving together in sync, they toppled over the side still embracing, just as Nadia reached them, tears falling down her face, looking grief-stricken.

The ground rose up at a surprising speed to meet them. The drop was a lot higher than she had expected as they dropped through the air. It whipped and twisted Katherine's hair up like a tornado around her face as she fell, still clutching onto Silas. They were inches apart, still staring into each other's eyes. Her heart fluttered in exhilaration and breath was robbed from her starving lungs as the ground loomed beneath her, reaching ever closer. But as she looked at him, she couldn't bring herself to care. Faintly, she registered that a white light was enveloping the building, clouding her vision.

That was the last thing she remembered before they both slammed into the ground, and the light became her world, absorbing her into it.

**Thank you for reading.**

**If you want to read part 2, I've posted it already originally called **_**To Save You, I Could Do Anything.**_

**Can I get some more reviews on this story? :-)**


	11. Chapter 11

**Hi! I'm just doing this one-shot based off if Katherine had left a letter for Stefan, like she did Nadia.**

**Thanks for reading and suggestions are always welcome.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own the vampire diaries, it belongs to Julie Plec and L.J Smith.**

_**I Guess I'll See You in Hell, My Love.**_

Cold as ice.

Numb inside.

The trickling warmth of a tear sliding down Stefan's face as he watches Elena sleep, knowing that someone else had been inside her. Someone he oddly misses very much, even more so with every passing minute. From an odd twinge of regret in his stomach as she lay dying, to the point where he now feels as though his heart is about to explode in agony from the knowledge that he would never see her again.

_Katherine_.

She'd ran for so long, survived child birth, massacres of her entire family, a psychopathic hybrid and his clueless brother, who couldn't seem to take a hint, and it had all ended with a stab to the stomach of a body that wasn't even hers, and bearing the face that had ruined men for centuries.

It _hurts, _knowing that he'd been the one to leach the life from her. Like a thousand needles prodding his skin, and a million tonnes of water cascading onto his chest, and he'd rather be one of those ruined men right now, if he got another minute with her, the chance to admit, that yes, he had loved her, yes, there was something there, yes, he cared. He'd thought that saving Elena was the most important thing, which was why it was a spur-of-the-moment thing, but what if it wasn't?

In the end, Elena Gilbert was just another one of those faces that couldn't help but rip hearts out wherever they went. That was the curse of the doppelgängers. He can't look at her calm and peaceful face any longer without thinking of another, and abruptly leaves the room, ignoring Damon's confused glance at him.

_Why is it hurting so much?_ He can't look at anything, think clearly, without seeing Katherine, laying next to her daughter's dead body.

Stefan storms into his room, hands in hair, frustrated and angry at the fact that he _was _angry and frustrated over her death to begin with. Katherine was _dead. _Oh, God.

It's only just hitting him. Pain slicing through his body in waves, particularly visious at his heart.

He feels like slumping onto the bed, and crying out in agony, but somehow he can't quite manage.

He needs to do something, anything to distract himself from the sudden numbing absence of _her. _Someone he thought he'd long let go, and gotten over.

But in the end, he was only lying to himself.

Scrambling for the shelves, he fumbles for what is left of his diaries (six, by the way), throwing them all over the room until he found _2012-13, _and rips it open, trying to find a blank page to scribble his emotions on, when a white envelope flutters to the ground, simple and plain in its innocence.

It drives Stefan's curiosity instantly, and he reaches for it without even thinking. He turnes it over, seeing the familiar style of writing that spells out his name, tracing it with his finger, with an instant smile. He knows who it's from. He tears the envelope open without any hesitation, scanning it eagerly for anything, the last trace of her.

_My Saint Stefan,_

He quirks a smile. That name's so old he can't even remember who had come up with it.

_Well then, my beloved, here we are, at the end of our poetic love story. My time is running out, time I suppose I never deserved, and I've never found time to admit this, but, I'm scared. I've been running from death for so long that I didn't see it coming at me from something I should have seen coming, and now it's too late. Because I know that by the time you read this, I'll be long dead, struck mercilessly at the hands of you and the so-called heroes of Mystic Falls. My money's on you or Damon._

He has to laugh at that. Her writing is so concise and beautiful, that it's like she's there next to him, speaking those very words.

_So know that though you claim to hate me, and you are probably convincing yourself right now, and will do so for every minute of every hour of every day._

_But you don't._

_Otherwise, you wouldn't actually be reading this far into this letter right now, probably with something close to regret. And I don't know that for sure because of arrogance, or because I'm trying to convince myself otherwise._

_It's because I know _you_._

_I know you, as much as you know me, because we did have something. We had something for years, and now I am forever crippled with the fact that we may never finish that something. Crippled by the fact that by now, I'll never be able to touch you again, or look out for you, and you'll never set eyes on me again. And yes, like I said before, blah blah, poetic love story nonsense and all, but it's the truth. I miss you._

_I love you._

_And, besides, if you're this far into this letter already, and haven't burnt it or thrown it away, even if it's only out of sheer curiosity, and if even just a little tiny part of you still cares for me, then do one more favour for me._

_Live._

_Stop everyone else's lives weighing you down and preventing you from leaving this one-horse town, and live. Don't pretend like Damon and Elena's betrayal didn't hurt you, don't let Damon ruin your life for one he now wouldn't trade in for the world. Don't let Mystic Falls kill you too. You have eternity to see these people again, and I don't have anymore forevers to spend waiting for you, at your side. So, please, for me, leave. Leave the people behind that have caused you so much undeserved pain and have some fun for once. Broody Stefan isn't my favourite Stefan, anyway. You could have an eternity of freedom and happiness ahead of you if you let go, and I'm telling you to do just that. I'm setting you free, Stefan._

If it were possible, at this moment, his heart would be beating again. This is the most honest thing she's ever said to him, even if she's no longer here to say it, and all he wants to do is read more like a man starved of oxygen wants to breathe.

_Consider it my apology for everything I've put you through for the last hundred and forty odd years, because, let's face it, it's the only one I'm ever going to give you. So, I'm sorry. It wasn't my intention to make you or Damon suffer, for leaving you to fend for yourselves as new-born vampires, and even for threatening Elena, since you seem to care so much about her, (who, I knew, by the way, was going to break your heart, she's far too much like me for her own good), and for far more other things I'm too careless to count._

_Just consider this my redemption. And, forgive me, my love, but consider yourself the cleansing of my sins. Pure and perfect, you were never a good match for me, but hey; maybe I won't end up in Hell after all._

_I do. I forgive you. _Stefan realises with a shock. It had actually taken her finally dying for him to realise it, but he forgives her. He _loves_ her. And he doesn't want her letter to ever end.

_Okay then, that's my epitomy, my hand's cramping anyway, but at least remember what I said, Stefan. Remember me. I'm on borrowed time, so spare a dead women a thought now and then._

_It's been a fun two centuries, Stefan, so why not remember how interesting your life was when I was in it?_

_I guess this is it then, onwards to my impending death. Who knows? Maybe I will see you in Hell._

_Goodbye, my beloved._

_Forever and always yours, Katherine._

A second tear runs down his face, and for a moment, he can't believe her letter seems so short.

But then he reads her afterword, and he thinks his heart at that moment completely shatters.

_P.S I hope you're not the one to kill me, but for some reason I think you will. And that scares me more than I can say. It scares me the most._

Stefan rips out that last part, tears it into little pieces and then burns it for good measure, it's far too painful to even think of, and reads her letter again and again, thumb smoothing over her signature, the words bearing her love for him and the imprints that prove that Katherine ever existed on this Earth.

And then he completely trashes his room in a state of anger and misery and love lost.

One thought pounds in his mind throughout: He has to leave Mystic Falls. For her. But not yet.

It doesn't make him feel any better.

Nothing does. Only her.

But she's gone.

**~X~**

He covers up his anger, smothers his revenge. Waits patiently for the right time to strike. Bides his time. Because he knows he's to blame for Katherine's death, but everyone else is to blame too. And they will pay.

_I'll try to live, I'll try to make everyone who counts suffer, but no promises._

He doesn't get the chance. Travellers, new doppelgängers, witches, wage a war in his home town, and naturally, being one of those doppelgängers, he gets sucked in too, a pawn in a twisted and sick game which is the result of a mad man who wanted more than life could give him, which he could never hope to possibly understand.

He swears he's never hated Silas more.

But he will fight tooth and nail if it means getting to finish what he swore he would start. Spurred on by her face, Katherine's smile, lost in the copied reprinted face of Elena Gilbert, stolen and empty.

Elena will never be Katherine.

But she'll be the first of his targets in his quest for revenge if he gets his way.

**~X~**

He dies at the hands of Julian three weeks later, arms splayed out as his heart is pulled away from his chest from the spirit inhabiting the body of his friend, Katherine's letter tucked away in the confines of his jacket. But all he can do really, is laugh. How fitting.

Katherine was right. She was always right.

Mystic Falls killed him. Damon and Elena ruined him.

_Oh well, _he sighs, as he grasps Bonnie's arms, officially becoming part of the ever disintegrating Other Side. Seems Mystic Falls killed it too.

_I guess I'll see you in Hell then, my love._

**You like? I accept suggestions, so please leave reviews!**


	12. Chapter 12

**Just a very very short kind of character study of what I think could have happened.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own tvd it belongs to Julie Plec and L.J Smith.**

It's all crumbling around her as she falls, from a top-predatory vampire, to a scavenger in another's body. She's been falling for a while, but she's too heartsick right now to notice as her long-lost daughter fades away in front of her. But she was alive, and Nadia wouldn't have it any other way, but she was on borrowed time, and so was her mother, one lost in another's stolen copy of a body, the other losing her fight to live from a festering hybrid bite thanks to the venom of one Tyler Lockwood. She knew he couldn't be trusted.

No-one half-way decent could, ruthless in protecting the people they loved, no matter what the cost.

Ironic, since the hateful mother she had sworn to find, who ripped to shreds everyone she had ever met, now sat beside her, with a fond and fearful look about her, gripping her child's hand, giving her the dreams and promises of what could never have been, and unwaveringly proving her love and providing her trust.

So Nadia smiles, with hope on her heart, at the mother who could never love, as she utters out those final words of peace.

"_Your mother loves you."_

Nadia takes in her last breath, and slips away, over to the Other Side, delirious but loved, and Katherine Pierce shuts down, and flips her switch, (or really, Elena's, it's long been stolen) for one final time, letting go of her last link to sanity, and losing herself in complete and utter madness, in the depths of Elena Gilbert's body. Right then and there, she vows to cause a devastating destruction in her newfound freedom.

Because Elena Gilbert never met a heart she couldn't break, and now, being Elena Gilbert whose feelings gave her excuses for her actions she never deserved, Katherine could get away with _anything_.

She lights the match that had been hidden in her pocket; strikes up a flame against the wooden table before anyone can stop her, and holds it up as everyone watches, hovering over her daughter's dead body, eyes fixated in hatred on the man that killed her daughter, and completely destroyed her.

And then she drops it.

Her reign of terror is just beginning.

**-X-**

His life was nothing. Obliterated by madness and the yearning for something he should never have had, and far more than what life could ever give him.

A madman who could never have guessed what the repercussions of his actions have wrought on the world.

Humanity twists and pulls away from him, leaving him restless, with a bitter and tormented soul.

So he stares blackly at the Boarding House as the flames smoulder and burn, spreading about the home like cyanide through a body, and he smirks an evil smirk as he silently watches his shadow self glaring at his home, anger sparking in his eyes, a mere fraction of his own.

And then he laughs, as Katherine Pierce flits away, zooming away in a body that wasn't even hers, separated from her own body that also wasn't hers to begin with, with vengeance burning in her soul.

She's far too much like him for her own good, and far too impressive to be scared of Klaus.

Klaus has nothing on her.

She has nothing on him, not when he will finally escape from this purgatory created especially for him.

"_Silas will unleash hell on Earth." _Kol Mikealson once said.

Two thousand years wasted, rotting and starving in a tomb due to a stalker witch who couldn't let anything go? Killed by his doppelganger, trapped in a never-ending hell and separated from his one true love?

_Oh yes_, he decides, _yes I shall_.


	13. Chapter 13

**Hope you like this, though I don't even really know what's going on, I kind of started writing this chapter and I wanted Matt to be in it sooo...**

**Disclaimer: I don't own tvd characters, or some of the storyline included in chapter, they belong to Julie Plec and L.J Smith but this story is mine.**

_**Love makes liars of us all.**_

People were very strange.

Vampires were even stranger.

It was just an observation Matt had made over the years. Well, of course _vampires_ were strange; they drank people's _blood _for crying out loud, but Matt didn't find that the weirdest thing about them.

The strangest thing he found about vampires, was how similar they were to humans, despite their obnoxious ability to ruin everyone's lives. They tried to insinuate themselves into normality, invade people's lives, for whatever reason, until they shattered everything around them.

Hell, some of them had been doing it for decades, so Matt didn't even know why they bothered anymore.

For example, Sarah Salvatore.

Vampires were already ruining her life from the moment she was born and she didn't even know it. Stefan Salvatore, although he means well for her safety, merely getting involved from a safe distance meant signing her death sentence.

"You don't find it the least bit strange that they just up and left?" Enzo interrupted Matt's train of thought, glaring suspiciously at the door Sarah and Stefan had left through.

"I told you she's his family. If they want to talk, let them talk. Why the hell do you care?"

"Because I care about the truth, care about authenticity." Enzo narrowed his eyes, keeping them trained on the wall opposite.

"Or you just hate Stefan."

"I do actually, yeah. He abandoned his brother, turned me over to a vampire hunter, and he hurt the one girl who can honestly do no wrong." Enzo snapped. The intensity behind his words shocked Matt a little. He really meant every word, must have really cared about Damon and Caroline, more than Matt had given him credit for.

"That's not why I care, no. I care because he does all that and is still considered a hero when I get stuck being a villain." He continued bitterly.

"Yeah, because you kill people." Matt pointed out bluntly. He may have felt sorry for Enzo, but there was no excusing his behaviour.

"What, and Stefan doesn't? Come on. You and I both know that's not true. I'm just up front about it, but Stefan, no, who knows what he's done?" Enzo took another sip of his drink, still on a roll. "He's just a liar with a little box of secrets. Come on, Mush. Let's open the box." He smirked.

In response, mainly because he had no retort left, Matt stood up and left, pondering over the weight of Enzo's words. Stefan had never been very open about himself, his experiences, so who knew what he had done? Who knew what he was _capable _of? Either no one willing to tell, or no one alive _to _tell. The 'Ripper of Monterey' was responsible for that.

So yes, Matt decided. Stefan Salvatore had a lot of secrets.

**~X~**

They were both standing by Stefan's car when he found them.

On the edge of the road, far too calm and quiet for his liking. He honked at them, just as Sarah started walking away from Stefan, looking relatively unharmed, then hopped out of the truck, eagerly making his way over to her. It was then, with a shock, Matt found he genuinely cared about Sarah's welfare. Not just because of her family history, or because of pity, but because of _her._

Of course he should have suspected that that wouldn't last very long.

"Hey! You okay?" Matt asked her. Sarah looked at him blankly.

"Who are you?"

Matt felt as though his stomach had caved in. "You compelled her? Why?" He asked Stefan, as he struggled to keep his temper down.

"She's not my family, she's a con artist, and I'm just trying to get rid of her." Stefan argued, before turning to Sarah. Matt once again felt the pervading sense of secrecy, something Stefan was hiding.

"Get out of here."

Sarah pushed past Matt, walking away as though in a daze, when all of a sudden Enzo was in front of her.

"Aah! What the hell?" She shrieked as he grabbed her.

"No screaming, love, and don't move." Enzo commanded. Sarah instantly froze, and Matt felt panic surge up inside him.

"Enzo, what are you doing?" He demanded through gritted teeth. Enzo, in response, turned Sarah around so she was facing them, pulling her back against him. 

"I want the whole story, the one not obscured by the dulcet tones of a blender." Enzo snarled, gripping the girl tighter.

"I told you she's a con artist. There is no Sarah Salvatore. That baby died when Damon killed her mom." Stefan replied tersely.

Even Matt could tell that was a lie.

"Then why listen to this one babble on for twenty minutes? Why whisk her away to speak privately, hmm? Why wipe her memory, Stefan?" Enzo brushed the hair back from Sarah's shoulders, exposing more of her neck, a gleam of realisation in his eyes. "She knows something."

"Come on. Don't do this. Just let her go." Stefan said, body tense with unspoken emotion, yet he _still_ didn't make a move towards Enzo. He was stronger than him, right? Matt seethed angrily. _Why wasn't he doing anything?_

"See? He's digging in. Can always spot a liar. How about a countdown? That's fair for everyone, right?" Enzo continued. "Five seconds. Four...three..."

Matt stepped forward, almost without thinking. He couldn't let Sarah die. "Enzo, let her go, or I swear-"

"You'll what?" Enzo looked completely unfazed, which drove Matt's fury even more.

"I will kill you." He said, making every enunciation clear.

Enzo cocked his head to the side, then gripped a whimpering Sarah's neck. "Will you? Because Stefan's five seconds are up." And he snapped her neck. Just like that. That's how long it took for a human to die in Mystic Falls. One second made all the difference.

"No!" Matt yelled as she slumped to the ground.

Stefan suddenly grabbed Matt's arms. It was only then that Matt realised, through a haze of rage, that he'd been advancing towards Enzo with the full intent to kill him.

"Don't be stupid. Don't be stupid." Stefan hissed as Matt struggled, tears forming in his eyes as he looked at the dead girl on the ground.

Enzo, however, looked unaffected, maybe even a little amused. And that was what made Matt all the more bitterly angry. "Just think. All of this could have been avoided if you'd have just told the truth." He shrugged. "No matter. I'll find out sooner or later."

In the blink of an eye, for a human at least, he was gone. Matt wordlessly wrestled out of Stefan's grip, and ran over to Sarah, picking her lifeless body up. Stefan helped, silently grabbing her more effortlessly, and placing her into the trunk of Matt's truck. He sighed, slowly turning to face Matt, as though scared of the consequences.

"Look. I'm sorry that Enzo killed her. He's-"

"A monster. Yeah, I know, but you could have stopped him, and you didn't." Matt knew he sounded bitter and hateful, but he didn't care.

"What, you think that was easy for me, watching an innocent girl die?" Stefan snapped.

"I don't know actually." Matt retorted. "You're not exactly the sharing type."

"Matt, I promise you that everything I do I have thought out over and over, making sure it's the right thing to do." Stefan frowned.

Matt folded his arms, letting the anger explode out of him. "So we're just supposed to trust that you know best?" He should have closed his mouth, but the resentment was boiling over.

"No. You're supposed to trust that I'm nothing like Enzo." Stefan shot back, looking annoyed.

Matt smiled a sad smile. "The problem is you are." _You all are._

"Because no matter how close vampires get to humans, our lives will always mean less, so when push comes to shove, we'll be on opposite sides, which is what Tripp knew and I didn't."

And with that, Matt got into his truck and drove off, watching as Stefan's figure slowly became a shadowy smudge. It was only then that he realised, since Sarah had been a con artist, that he would never know her real name.

Stefan was definetly a lot more like Enzo than he thought he was.

**~X~**

Matt was still annoyed the next day. Burying an innocent girl, yet another victim in a vampires twisted scheme...how long would this last?

He'd eventually packed and gone to Whitmore to visit Caroline and Elena, needing to get away, clear his head. He even got a part-time job at a cafe, cleaning up after closing time to help distract him. It almost worked.

Except that all got thrown to the wind when Stefan walked through the door.

There was a tense silence in the atmosphere between them, and Matt briefly wondered if he could make a run for it, when Stefan cleared his throat and spoke first.

"Look," Stefan started, approaching Matt. "You were right. Humans and vampires, we're always gonna be on opposite sides. But it doesn't mean that you're not important to vampires as well."

Matt shook his head, still not in the mood to forgive. "But you still kill us, you manipulate us, use us. We may be important to you, but you still ruin us. Me, Jeremy, Elena, Alaric, we've all died at least once because of vampires."

"Yeah, but not because of me. I've never killed any of you guys, at least not directly."

Matt shot him a skeptical look. "That may be so, but no offence, if you and Damon hadn't come into our lives, a lot of us humans would still be living a normal life."

Stefan shrugged. "What can I say? Yes, I have killed humans, but unlike Enzo, _I don't enjoy doing it. _Most of the time, I've been compelled, or had my emotions turned off, and even then the guilt cripples me. Both good and bad people have suffered because of vampires, and regardless, they don't deserve it."

"Yeah, but it doesn't bring them back. It doesn't bring Sarah back." Matt went back to cleaning the table, avoiding Stefan's eye.

"Well, what if I told you that not everyone died? What if Sarah Salvatore wasn't the only secret I kept from Damon and the others?" Stefan smirked.

Now Matt was confused. The conversation had gone darker. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that Sarah," Stefan smirked. "or the real Sarah, isn't the only one who Damon thinks is dead. I've tricked him more than once you know."

"Well, who is it?" Matt must have still looked as dubious as he sounded because Stefan pulled a notebook out of his pocket and started scrawling something down on it. He tore out the page and gave it to Matt.

"Go to this address in Bulgaria. Then you'll see what I'm talking about." He pulled out his wallet and threw some notes on the table at Matt, who was still trying to sort through the surprises unloaded suddenly onto him in his head.

"Go on," he prodded. "I'd take it. You're the only one I've told, trusted this with, don't make me regret it."

Matt stared in astonishment at him for a moment, his gut twisting in turmoil. Instinct was telling him not to go, but did he really want to pass up on knowing what exactly Stefan wanted to hide, even from his own brother?

Curiosity overrode instinct, and he took the piece of paper and money, leaving to pack a bag and get a taxi to the airport before he could change his mind.

**~X~**

"We're here. Twenty dollars fare." The taxi driver grumbled in a thick accent, waking Matt out of his light snooze. He jolted upright, apologising, handing over what he thought was way too much money, before getting out and looking up at the house, or villa, really.

It looked lush and inviting, despite having a slightly creepy demeanour, even from the outside. Plants and vines creeped over the walls, although the house could only possibly be a few years old, judging from the fresh paint work. The garden wasn't too shabby either; green, healthy grass covered the lawn surrounding the house, which was slightly overshadowed by the branches of some sort of tree growing nearby. There was even a path leading up to the door, which for some reason was about six feet wide. Matt slowly approached the house, looking around cautiously, a natural instinct to be constantly on the look out for supernatural creatures overpowering him.

It was almost a relief to be knocking on the door; it meant no more secrets, lies, hidden agendas, things Matt had long since grown sick of.

One minute passed, then two, with no one answering the door. Matt suspected they weren't in, but Stefan had implied that whoever this was would be, would likely be at the house.

Impatience was setting in, and he irritably scrolled through his phone, ready to call Stefan and demand some answers from the vampire, when the door finally clicked open, and Matt finally came face to face with Stefan Salvatore's biggest secret.

And whoever, or whatever he had been expecting, it was definetly not this. _This _he could never have seen coming.

"Y-_you!_" Matt stuttered, feeling the colour drain from his face in horror. Had Stefan tricked him? Was this all a ploy to get him out of the way? Questions whirled in his mind in a blind panic as he stumbled back, phone slipping from slack and sweaty fingers, the man descending silently towards him.

"But-but you're supposed to be dead-" He was cut off by a sharp blow to the head, sending pain exploding through his skull and knocking him hard to the ground, the metallic taste of blood sour in his mouth. He couldn't see anything but blurred colours swimming together, and he felt too immobolised to move.

The last thing he remembered was his bag being ripped from his shoulder as he dropped into darkness, the stain of betrayal, shock and fear still heavily imprinted in his mind.

**Sooo...what do you think? Please drop a review, they are much appreciated. Thanks again for reading :-)**


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: I don't own tvd, it belongs to Julie Plec and L.J Smith.**

**Thanks for reading! This is the second part to chap 13. Btw, this is a steferine story. This is the edited version, which now (I hope) makes much more sense than the first one.**

Darkness erupted in Matt's vision. Swirls of dark patterns darted beneath his eyelids as he drifted in and out of consciousness.

"...well done, genius, you knocked him out!"

_Elena? _Matt pondered, wondering if his injury was causing him to imagaine her voice, twisted and bitter.

"Well _sorry, _I was afraid he'd run off and tell someone. You know how loyal he is to that Scooby gang. What was Stefan thinking?" A man, he sounded so familiar. Matt squeezed his eyes tighter, groaning as a fresh wave of pain rolled through his head.

"What were _you_ thinking?"

"...I was just..."

"Great. You've given him concussion...idiot." Someone else had grabbed his face, tilting him up. Another horrible headache throbbed in his skull again, he tried to pull away, but he was so tired, so, so tired, that he couldn't resist when his mouth was pried open, when hot coppery liquid was poured down his throat, washing away the pain, restoring his strength even as he choked on the horrid, bitter taste.

Strength restored, he finally managed to peel his eyes open, and cough feebly, cringing and flinching back as the light above seared his eyes.

"Hello, Matt? Matt, can you hear me?" A foreign female voice. Something hovered at the back of his mind; a memory, one he couldn't quite place.

He groaned in response, sitting up. Suddenly, with a horrible jolt, the memory of earlier hit him like a tsunami; Stefan sending him to Bulgaria, being greeted by one of the only people he never expected to see again, getting knocked out.

Swallowing in fear at the memory, Matt leaned back against the couch he was on, looking up at his unfamiliar surroundings, meeting the gazes of everyone in the room.

Katherine. Nadia. Amara. Another Stefan look-a-like, presumably the one Enzo had 'killed', Tom Avery.

Last of all, Silas, who had bashed him over the head with a pole upon arrival.

All alive. Right in front of him. Completely unharmed.

"Hello, Matt. Long time, no see." Katherine smirked.

All he could do was stare at them in horror and wish that the ground would swallow him up.

**-X-**

It was a very long and complicated story.

How each of them became a part of the intricately twisted and cleverly crafted plan that Stefan Salvatore had created.

"It started with us." Silas said, indicating him and Amara as Tom pushed a glass of much needed wine into his hands.

"He could have killed me, but he didn't. Instead he offered us money to pretend we were buried in a shallow grave whilst really we were on our way to a villa in Bulgaria that Stefan had paid for in advance. For whatever reason, he kept us alive." Silas explained.

"But-but Elena said she saw your body. And Amara killed herself." Matt stated, still shocked.

Amara waved her hand. "Simple illusions. I stabbed myself, pretended to die, but I had been fed vampire blood, so Damon thought I was dead, and Stefan stabbed Silas, made it look believable, when really I only had an inch deep wound that the vampire blood healed up."

Matt nodded, trying to digest this information. "And then what, because I'm pretty sure Katherine died of old age-and _you_-" he pointed a finger shakily at Nadia, a silent rage burning inside him at the sight of her. "I saw you die, I _buried _you, I _mourned _you, so start talking."

Silas' lips twitched, as though he were trying not to smile, and even Katherine looked impressed at Matt's sudden bravado.

"Well, what Elena saw was me and Amara lying in a makeshift grave, and Stefan standing above us holding a shovel, distracting Elena with some seriously hilarious guilt-tripping." Silas replied.

"And, as for me," Katherine interjected, I really _was _dying of old age, before you accuse me of lying. But, in order to save me, I had to temporarily jump into Elena's body. Fortunetly, Silas was able to perform a spell to reverse the effects of ageing on my comatose body, add some vampire blood, and Stefan 'killing' me, I'm a vampire again." She shrugged.

"Okay," Matt breathed out through his nose. "So you three are vampires," he nodded at Tom, Katherine and Nadia. "And, Nadia-"

"Tyler bit me, which wasn't part of the plan, so Stefan gave Katherine some of Klaus' old blood, whilst I was put under a dessication spell to slow the effects and make it look as though I was dead." Nadia looked slightly guilty. Good. Matt was glad. Out of all his girlfriends, she had broken him the most. "After you buried me, Stefan and Katherine dug me up and gave me the blood."

Matt took several gulps of the wine to clear his head. Or to muddle it further, he didn't know which.

"And, um, Caroline said you died." He said to Tom, who seemed the most mildest of everyone. "Enzo killed you in front of her. She was horrified."

"Yeah, uh, I don't know what really happened, but I woke up a vampire with my look alike teaching me blood-lust control and then shipping me off abroad." Tom shrugged, looking at Katherine, who took the hint.

"Basically, we knew there had to be another doppelgänger of Silas, because of Elena. So we used a locator spell, tracked Tom down. He'd been kidnapped by a witch, so we had to wait a few days until Caroline and Enzo went looking for him, before we gave him vampire blood. So when Enzo killed him-"

"He became a vampire. Yeah, okay. I got it." Matt blew out slowly. Everything was suddenly so _complicated_. How had he gotten embroiled in this?

Silas frowned at him. "Look, we're just trying to survive. Like you, like everyone else. And because Stefan's trusting you, we're trusting you too."

Matt gaped at him, mind still whirling. He had to get out of here. He owed nothing to these people. Most had tried to kill him on occasion, and he didn't think Elena quite deserved _this_. Maybe Damon did, but it was just _wrong. _He couldn't believe that Stefan had gone this far.

"Sorry, I-I gotta go." He stood up and headed towards the door.

"Wait!" They all hurried after him.

"You won't say anything will you?"

"Someone stop him!" That was Silas.

Nadia sped in front of him, arms open in a silent plea.

"Please don't say anything Matt, I don't want to compel you-"

"But you will. To get your way. And that's why I don't want to get involved." Matt said shortly.

Nadia's face softened, her eyes pleading. "I'm sorry. Really, I am. Look, the last flight to America's gone, so stay just for tonight. Think it through. We won't compel you. I swear."

Matt sighed. He supposed there was no harm in staying for a night. It wasn't like he was agreeing to help them or anything. It was only for Nadia. And besides, he had nowhere else but the airport to sleep.

"Fine. One night. But I still won't help you. Or Stefan." Everyone seemed to relax slightly in relief as Matt grabbed his bag and hurried up the stairs, Nadia right behind him, wishing he was somewhere else.

Only tomorrow would tell, but Matt was starting to wish he'd listened to his instincts rather than his instatiable curiosity.

**Thanks for reading, I hope this edited version makes more sense than the other one.**


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer: I don't own tvd it belongs to Julie Plec and L.J Smith, but this story is mine.**

**Sorry I haven't updated in a while, I've been busy with other stories :-) I hope this makes up for it. By the way, for those asking, this is a steferine story continuing from chapter 13.**

**Inm: tvdkatpierce.x**

Meaningless lies drip from his tongue. Stolen eyes vacate his face and the arrogance of the one who made him lurks in his soul.

This had been easier than expected.

The way they lapped up his lies, the way they believed that _sweet, loving, _Stefan Salvatore would _never _hurt his precious Elena, would _never _plot to ruin his brother's life, would _never _betray them.

They were all idiots.

Stefan Salvatore is not who he thought he was. Stefan Salvatore isn't the hero of this story. Not anymore.

He's the villain.

**~X~**

The vengeful seed is first planted after Elena sleeps with his brother.

Always there, lurking in the back of his mind, merely an urge to make them pay for so selfishly hurting him despite everything he had sacrificed for them.

He had considered switching off his humanity, shutting off the pain, but that was just too _easy. _Too easy for him to fall apart, lose control, and forget his vendetta. And Stefan doesn't want Damon and Elena to have it easy. Sure, he doesn't want them dead, that would be too kind, and besides, he wasn't _that _overdramatic.

He just wanted them to feel the pain of betrayal, love lost, and the burden of knowing when sacrifices had been for nothing.

To feel every _sickening _day watching them together, nurturing the seed until it grew into a poisonous flower.

The first part of his plan was easy. He would pretend to smile through the pain, help everyone, shrug it all away as the pieces of his plan came together.

_Revenge is always a dish best served cold._ his father says. The only lesson he ever learnt from him, that he took to heart when he ripped out his throat.

They will never see him coming.

**~X~**

It started with Silas.

Admittingly, the man had thrown him off course, unexpectedly and completely into insanity, but it only fueled him further. And, as hateful as he was about his doppelgänger, the witch had a sweet taste for revenge, he had to give him that, and besides, he inspired far more loyalty towards Stefan than Damon ever could.

In the end, the loneliness was what had destroyed him, not the safe. And they had done that to him.

_"Remember me? I remember you." Stefan hissed through clenched teeth, his fingers clenched around his doppelgängers throat. Rage blazed, before purpose set in._

_"I'm sorry, is it hard to breathe? Is your throat closing? Did the fear of dying start to creep in yet?" The nightmare flashed before his eyes, a reluctant horror._

_Suddenly, pain shot through his skull, sharp and terrifying. Of course Silas wasn't going down without a fight._

"I hear every emotion is heightened for a vampire. All those memories must be eating you alive right now, Stefan. What's it like to die? I've never done it. You must have done it a thousand times over the summer." Silas growled, straightening against the tree.

_Stefan grunted in pain, clenching his fists into the ground, reminding himself not to end Silas right there and then. "Stop it!"_

_"Stop it? I've spent two thousand years alone in a tomb. You were locked up for what? Three months? Look at you! You're a mess. The safe was the easy part, wasn't it? Being forgotten about, that's the real torture, isn't it?"_

_Beneath Silas' sadistic smirk, there was something that Stefan could relate to. He knew it. He knew why Silas had made him suffer. And that's what made what came next easier._

_He fumbled through the pain, grabbing the knife, glinting on the floor and throwing it with a precise and careful vampiric aim-_

_Imbedding it in Silas' left shoulder._

_He gasped in pain, slumping against the tree, breaths shuddering and choked, eyes widening as he realised that he was still alive. Amara, having untangled herself from her binds, stumbled towards them._

_"Silas!" She choked out, falling next to him, white as a sheet. Silas absently grabbed her hand, staring at Stefan in shock._

_"What are you doing?"_

_"Saving your life, okay with that, are you?" Stefan didn't wait for an answer, and marched over to them, yanking the blade out of Silas' shoulder._

_"Get up if you want this to all be over." He motioned at them, before grabbing a shovel, using vamp speed to dig a shallow grave._

_"Lay against that tree. Pretend to be dead. Quick." He hissed impatiently at Silas. He could hear Damon and Elena calling for him._

_"What-" Silas seemed set to argue, but Amara tugged him towards the tree without a word, whispering at him in hushed tones, before he finally lay down and closed his eyes, completely still. Amara moved to follow, but Stefan stopped her._

_"Wait." He fed her his blood, enough to prolong her life after a serious injury, muffling her surprised shriek, then handed her the knife, looking into her eyes and compelling her, just in case. "Pretend to be sad about his death, say your eternity with him is just beginning. Stab yourself a few inches deep when you hear Damon or Elena coming, then pretend to be dead. I'll heal you." Stefan whispered, watching her walk over to a still Silas. Two thousand years trapped as a stone statue had paid off._

_He ran off further down the woods, hiding behind a tree, watching as Damon found Amara as she stabbed herself, his cries of horror as she slumped into his arms, spewing back out his blood, and his pleas to stay with him, despite thinking it was too late._

_"Let me die." Amara whispered, before going still and quiet in his brother's arms._

_She really was a convincing actress._

_Damon shook her repeatedly, making sure she was dead, before getting up and heading to the Boarding House, his face a mask of shock and horror, shoulders hunched, presumably to find the others. He didn't have much time._

_Stefan hurried over to Silas and Amara, pulling them to their feet, and dragging them wordlessly over to the shallow grave he had dug, and motioned for them to close his eyes, before the others came to find him. He couldn't risk being overheard._

_Not a second later, he heard Elena running into the clearing. Just the sight of her made his chest hurt, made him feel empty inside, like he was worthless. She stopped when she saw him, taking in a deep breath at the sight of Silas in his grave and Amara motionless on the floor._

_"Stefan? What happened-"_

_"I killed him. Then she killed herself before me and Damon could stop her." He said, staring down at their still bodies, making sure his voice trembled slightly with hidden shock._

_"So, he's dead. It's over." Elena stated, sounding dubious._

_"Yeah, it's over."  
_

_"Are you okay?" She asked cautiously. _

_"I'm fine." He replied tersely._

_Elena wouldn't let up. "Look at me and tell me that killing Silas worked. That you'll be okay now."_

_"Why is this so important to you?" Stefan turned around, glaring at her in annoyance. Why couldn't she just leave him alone?_

_"Because I know how much he stole from you!" Elena stated, as though that were meant to explain everything.  
_

_"Yeah, and he's dead." He retorted._

_"And because while you were suffering in that safe, grasping onto hope, fighting every second so you wouldn't lose your humanity... I was happy." He hated her just then for that little self-righteous speech, more than anything, more than he thought he had hated her, and the realisation seemed to choke him._

_"I got everything that I wanted, Stefan. I got to be in love, I got the summer of my dreams, I got Bonnie back. So I need to know that this worked. I need to know that it's gonna take away all your suffering. I need to know that you're gonna be okay." She said, in that slightly patronising tone that made everything about her._

_Stefan inwardly rolled his eyes. Why did she bother? It wasn't as if she really cared, she just wanted to clear her conscience._

_Now he needed to sell his pain, make them suffer with the only lie that seemed close to the truth. "I wanted it to be you. When that safe finally opened and somebody found me... I wanted it to be you."_

_He could see Damon behind her, edging closer with a guilty look on his face._

_"I wanted it to be both of you." He relished in the shame on their faces._

_He probably took far more pleasure in her and Damon's expressions then they should, but his speech had the desired effect. They left, awkwardly edging away with hushed whispers as he glared at them._

_There was a scrabbling sound; Silas was climbing out of his makeshift grave, helping Amara up, both brushing dirt off their clothes._

_"Why did you do that?" Silas finally asked the question Stefan had been expecting, as Stefan fed Amara more of his blood as a precaution. He smiled, before pulling out his wallet and stuffing it into the stunned witch's hands._

_"You're my secret weapon, if you like. The secret to undoing everything Damon Salvatore has worked for." Stefan smirked, pulling out a notepad and scribbling an address onto it, before tearing it out and giving it to him._

_"Go to this address, I own it. Just pretend to be me if anyone asks."_

_"I-thank you." Silas says, still looking completely dumbfounded. Too dumbfounded to really question why Stefan was willing to ruin his own brother._

_Then he smirked, his true colours flaring again. "I'm impressed, shadow self. You're almost just like me. I clearly underestimated you."_

_It wasn't quite an apology, Stefan supposed, but it was a start._

_They left then, their figures so reminiscent of him and Elena it was almost painful to watch, but when Silas glanced back at him with an almost smile-and Stefan couldn't help but think,a sort of begrudging respect, he knew that no matter what, this was worth it._

_There was no going back now._

**~X~**

Katherine is next.

She's the one Damon and Elena hate the most, so he thinks, why not.

A fitting betrayal.

It was easy enough, falling back into her charming, seducing old ways, just like before. She's the person he's been looking for.

She's easier to win over. He tells her everything. Doesn't even think twice about it. He pretends to be plagued by nightmares in the safe that almost ruined him. He lets her get too close. They sleep together. He tells her about his plan, she tells him she's slowly dying. He burns inside.

It was far too easy to convince her to love him.

Helping her fake her death was even easier.

The body jump had been his idea. Because he wanted to start his revenge on Elena Gilbert early, and who was he to care how he did it?

It was easy really. He was the one who gets Silas to heal her body, so when she was found out, she survived and rose again. As a vampire.

_"You're sure this will work?" Katherine asked dubiously over her dead body, a hint of disgust in the stolen face of Elena Gilbert._

_Silas sighed impatiently. "Of _course_ I'm sure. As long as you don't become a permanent passenger in your little shadow's head, there's no reason I can't return you to your perfectly healthy body again." He gestured to her soulless body upon the floor, attached to all kinds of machinery, keeling it breathing, keeping it alive, feeding vampire blood through the tubes into her system._

_She sniffed delicately, and Stefan smiled at the sight._

_"Here's the blood from Klaus I promised you. It's old, but it'll work." Stefan handed Katherine. "Keep it safe. Remember not to administer it to Nadia until after the desiccation spell is performed. You know what to look for."_

Everything, down to the traveler knife clutched in his hand, over her daughter's body, was planned to the last detail. Faking her death was simple enough; she had done it so many times that this one was a cinch. And whilst she set her sights on ruining everyone's lives, stirring up trouble, providing the perfect cover to his deceit with her deception, he was using the opportunity to put the last part of his plan together.

_"Stefan," she whispered, and he fought to keep his face blank. Because even temporarily killing her had become the most difficult thing he had to do. "You have to admit, that for one fleeting moment, that your feelings were real." Fury, passion, terror, love, oh yes they had something._

_He didn't say anything, played the part well, as she pressed a soft kiss against his mouth, the first and last of many to come, before he stabbed her, a mix of relief and regret, as she lay there and died, next to her dessicated daughter's body, her spirit returning to her now fully healed doppelganger body, courtesy of Silas, but not before leaving Elena with a little present to find in the form of a ripper virus._

_He thinks he loves her just for that._

_With one last kiss and a bid farewell, she was off to her home country, her daughter in tow along with Silas and Amara, and the one overpowering thing he felt was relief._

_He was glad he hadn't really killed her._

_He was glad she hadn't really died._

_"I love you, Stefan." She whispered against his ear. "We will be together again." Words he had also heard from so long ago, words he wasn't supposed to remember, coat his memory, filling him with hope and rigged on his long gone icy heart._

Yes_, he thinks, watching her walk away, the promise of so much more to come on her lips, and the art of deception on her soul._

Yes we will.

**~X~**

Then came Tom Avery.

A crucial survival tactic in a war he never knew he was a part of.

He was a little trickier than the others. Born blind to the supernatural world and more human than the rest, he had no knowledge of vampires and witches, of doppelgängers and witches.

If everyone believed he was dead, the travelers would perform the spell, but it wouldn't work the desired effect. It wouldn't go as far, and it wouldn't be very strong, but the doppelgängers would be protected because they were needed. Damon, Elena, well, with luck they'd be dead before the day was out, but Stefan needed his secrets for more than just protection.

They were his secret weapons.

He feels bad, a touch of guilt flitting through his stomach in a moment of weakness when he thinks of Caroline, quiet and tears in her eyes as she recalls the moment Enzo hit the killing blow.

He'll tell her, just not yet. Not until he's sure she's willing to leave behind the life she's always known, the friends who leave her out and the vampire who abused her.

She deserves to be happy.

_The witch was in a trance when he found the house._

_Eyes white, blank and unseeing, there was no way he and Katherine were getting in there so long as her heart beat, so Silas and Amara did it for them, whilst Stefan was in the angry snare of the travelers, tracking the man he already knew existed._

_It was too dangerous to communicate, since Sloan had stolen his phone, so they had to wait for Caroline and Enzo to leave, so Silas could perform a locators spell on them so they could give him the blood within a day of Caroline finding him._

_Caroline eventually came back, pale-faced and telling him Enzo killed Tom (how fitting, he'd known Caroline would never kill an innocent man) and everything fell into place._

_After several more tracking spells, he tracked the body to the outskirts of Atlanta._

_The body wasn't in the grave it was supposed to be in, a mass of dirt replaced it._

_The blood and the screams led him to some small town three miles away-nothing to a vampire. He found the body of a young girl in a dumpster, (everyone's found in dumpsters) not long dead. She seemed to be the only one._

_He found his doppelgänger not far from there, huddled in the back of an alleyway, drying blood matting his clothes and face, shell-shocked, completely unmoving. When Stefan touched his shoulder, he jerked back, looking up at him. His eyes widened in horror, and he crawled away backwards, trying to escape, before Stefan sped over to him, grabbing him by the shoulders to stop him from getting away._

_"Who are you-oh my God-you-you-how do you look liked me?" Tom gabbled, a frightened expression on his face, reminiscent of Elena meeting Katherine for the first time._

_"I can help you. Just calm down." He grabbed Tom's shoulders before he could leave, letting his fangs drop, his thick, hungry veins crawl beneath his eyes. Tom relaxed a little, though remained in his huddled position on the floor, watching Stefan warily._

_"You're a vampire now. You need to learn to control yourself, and I can help you." He offered a hand to Tom, who reluctantly took it, and yanked him to his feet._

_"Firstly, you need to know how to blend in with society again." He held up the daylight ring Silas had made. "This will allow you to walk in the sun. Never take it off." He slid it into Tom's finger before he could argue._

_"Secondly, snatch, eat erase." Stefan said, easing him out of the alleyway._

_"Control is everything."_

_He taught him everything there was to know, about vampires, doppelgängers, the reason for his existence, even handed him a presentation Caroline had made just for precaution, and took him to the others, leaving him in their care._

_The last piece of advice he gave them before he died was, "Be prepared for whatever happens next."_

**~X~**

He dies. His heart is ripped out in right in front of him, but it's exactly what he expected.

The Other Side was being destroyed because he had messed with the travelers spell, and he wound up in the heart of it all.

Then he meets Lexi again, and tells her why he's doing what he's done, and what's going to happen next.

With her help, he pretends to be Silas. He knows the spell, he had it memorised in case such a situation as this ever occurred.

Everyone was so busy worrying about his death they never realised that he had died in the same outfit that Silas supposedly had.

And because he knows that Bonnie would betray him, he also pretends to get sucked into Oblivion. And since Lexi is there, she saves him again.

Then he survives and rises again.

But Damon doesn't.

And he is sad, he does mourn Damon, because he hadn't wanted him _dead, _he just wanted him to suffer, and he had thwarted his plans.

He had ruined his ability to love.

So he has to move away, hurt Caroline in every way imaginable so he can remind himself that in the long run he is also doing this in part for her.

Then Damon comes back and ruins everything again.

And in doing so, sets his plan right back into motion.

**~X~**

He tells Matt everything.

He doesn't know exactly why, but it may be to do with the fact that he thinks Matt deserves the truth where it's never been given.

Besides, he thinks that he was good for Nadia. And if Nadia is happy, then so is Katherine.

When he sends Matt to Bulgaria to uncover the truth, he doesn't know what's going to happen. Whether he'll help them and keep Stefan's greatest secret; or if he'll betray them all.

And as for what happens next, well, only time will tell.

**Thank you for reading! Be sure to check out my Twitter, Tumblr and Instagram for updates on my stories if you are interested, and feel free to message me with requests.**

**Twitter: Saffy2510 ****Tumblr: Saffy2510**


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer: I don't own tvd, it belongs to Julie Plec and L.J Smith, I am using their characters merely for the purposes of my own story.**

**I don't even know what this is, but it kind of came out as a very erratic, kind of dark steferine drabble because they'll always be ㈵6**

**Set during season six, without Damon and Bonnie being dead, and just with Stefan not quite intact. **

**Thanks for giving it a try.**

**Warning: contains suicide. If you ship Steroline I suggest you don't read this.**

_**Even heroes have the right to bleed (I'm only a man looking for a dream)**_

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The symbolism of death haunts him.

Has _always _haunted Stefan Salvatore. For as long as he can remember. In the early bloodied days, the only background, morphed out of the terror of others and filling his vacant, emotionless existence, a black skeletal being killing his undead heart.

Gloomy, sticky, guilt-ridden. Painted with the blood of others and his soul smeared with his victims screams.

Haphazardly trying, trying, _trying, _but to no avail.

He tries too hard to feel people's pain. It kills him every day.

He has killed more than he ever dares to count. Tempted by the blood and then tormented by the grief and guilt afterwards.

Sometimes it is for selfless reasons. Or selfish. Whatever. They get confused in his mind somehow.

It doesn't make him feel any better.

And honestly, that black, skeletal figure of death is now somehow more promising than it has ever been threatening.

**-X-**

There is a dead girl in his room.

She taunts him with the ever haunting vision of _what if _and runs her fingers down the spine of his journal with a body that can no longer touch.

She smells of rain, and dust, and night times long swallowed by darkness, and sometimes he'll dream of a time when he was human, and the day he died because she didn't want to.

"I killed you." He flings the words at her because she seems to have forgotten. Maybe she wants the reminder to slice through his skin like vervain grenades because she knows that it _can_. Maybe _she _is his punishment for an eternity of misery he has unleashed upon the world.

She laughs, unflinching, a cold ugly laugh, that spills from it the horror-struck monster she had once been, as though the reminder of it is supposed to leave a lingering imprint on his already tattered soul.

"Oh, trust me, Stefan. You've killed me more times than you think."

**-X-**

Sometimes he finds her, sitting at his desk, scrawling on pages in his journal in her neat ornate print. They are not the names of his victims alone this time, but they are the people who have suffered by their hands, all because he wore another's face, which others have worn before him and would have kept on wearing after him had he not become the monster he swore not to be and his last doppelgänger were still standing, and all because they have literal fate lines on their palms.

_Bonnie Bennett, Caroline Forbes, Nadia Petrova, Tom Avery, Matt Donovan..._

The list grows longer but the minutes won't stop. Every name is more potent than the last in its ability to wrack guilt through his body.

Of course _she_ is no longer entwined with the fate of a man with a stolen face, _she _no longer lives with the guilt, if ever she had any. _She_ no longer has literal fate lines on her palms.

All because he killed her.

"Are you going to add your name as well?" He asks, because he can. He knows her like the back of his hand.

"You didn't kill me just in the sense of stabbing a dagger into my abdomen," she says, not entirely without cruelty. "You had killed my soul long before that."

"You killed my soul first." He argues, not entirely sure whether it's an admission or a petty lie to spite her.

"I came to see my daughter in her final moments. I sacrificed myself for her knowing I was going to die, it had nothing to do with you, Stefan."

His chest burns all of a sudden, and for some reason he feels resentment towards Nadia.

"Whatever." He punctuates his word with a roll of his eyes, so she can't tell he doesn't have anything else to say, which, he supposes, is only as fitting as she makes it.

Trouble is, Katherine Pierce always had a very cutting tongue.

**-X-**

Sometimes he thinks she's only there to see how much of a mess his life has become without her.

"Why do you keep harassing me? Why not annoy Damon?" He mumbles, eyes closed, spread-eagled on his bed. He opens them as she steps toward him, a beauty in it's own imagining.

"I love you." She smiles. She is never quite as beautiful as she is when she declares her love for him. "But you already know that. So why ask?"

"I've just been thinking a lot about this." He smiles sadly.

She idly runs her hand down his bed cover. Her face is turned away from him, as though she is afraid to look him in the eyes. "Why?"

Stefan pretends not to hear the emotion in her voice.

"I loved you once." He admits. "Sometimes I think I still do." Goodness knows how she'll take it.

She turns around, beautiful in the storm, masked in fury. She is the ice melting on his heart, and all it took was those five words.

"Then _what_ did I die for?"

He laughs, unflinching, a cold ugly laugh, that spills from it the horror-struck monster he had once been.

_I will love you forever._

The memories twist, clash and slide together, morphed into something new that doesn't at all help him because he can no longer remember the answers.

"I don't know." He finally says, drawing it out into the silent room.

It's the most truthful thing he's ever said to her.

**-X-**

"You know you shouldn't be doing this, right?" She'll smirk, looking at him, all teeth and nightmares, and _oh _Stefan falls apart just looking at her. She loves reminding him of his limitations, almost as if she's punishing him.

He recovers, tilts his head at her as though he doesn't understand and she reiterates his guilty conscience.

"Falling for a dead girl when you have another who's perfectly capable of loving you."

"I don't-" he starts, but can't seem to find the words, or the courage to even say them with false conviction. _I love you._

"I love her." He says, now angry at her, because she always makes him feel like this, wrong and childish.

"I _love_ Caroline." He wishes he could make himself feel more certain.

She smiles sadly, like he's telling her something infinitely unforgettable, like she's already seen this story, and she all of a sudden looks very five hundred and thirty eight years old. "I know."

He doesn't relish in the pain on her face this time. He guesses he just wants to prove to her that he is something.

He only wishes that he didn't feel the need to do it so often.

**-X-**

It takes her a week to come back, tattered and bloodied beyond recognition. It's taking her longer every time to come back to him.

"How many times will you keep coming back, just to haunt me?" He asks, exhausted. He glories for the days long past; where her song lived vibrantly cruel and he denied his love for her constantly, because if there is anything Katherine Pierce can do, it is make a thousand men fall weeping at her feet.

_Even heroes have the right to bleed._

She wears him out with her constant presence, ghostly apparitions and her daily reminders that he is the reason she is here to begin with.

There are days where merely her breath ages him. There are days where he is one hundred and sixty six years old and feels far too young.

"Eternity." Is her reply.

**-X-**

He doesn't see her for nearly a month this time.

Well, he didn't see her, but he certainly remembers the times he could _feel _her at the back of his mind, watching him, always when he didn't need her, and the times she wasn't there when he did.

Too much happens in her absence. There are too many things that go wrong in his life when she's not there.

"So," she says conversationally, spinning round full circle on his bedpost. "You have a mother."

Her voice, he notes, whilst empty of true malice, still makes him feel as though he's losing a war he never quite grasped the meaning of in the first place.

"Well done, very observant." He says, spitting out the words.

"Do you think she'll ever learn to love you?" Is her next question. Again, her voice is empty, carried away by the winds of Oblivion, voice stolen, vacated.

He's almost afraid to answer her. Somehow he's never enough for the people he's learned to love in his life.

"Well," Stefan smiles. "If _you_ of all people are doubting her love for me, then what possible chance could my poor estranged mother have?"

She smiles, all innocence and flighty, and very, very eighteen sixty four all in one, and for a second, he resents her, for taking her time away from him too short. Maybe it's his curse, he's the one who always feels too much.

Then she giggles, and suddenly something seems to lift off of his shoulders, which he is instantly guilty for because _Caroline, _whom is just another unlucky girl on his list of names, and another person whom he cares far too much for.

"Stefan, if it was anyone who ever doubted her love it was you."

He can't find it in him to disagree with her.

**-X-**

One Saturday afternoon, he finds her in the living room, a glass of bourbon in both hands, legs crossed on the couch, with a thoughtful, almost dazed gaze on her face, like she's at home. Or maybe she's _his_ home. Something like that.

It is that very defining moment he realises he's insane.

"It's funny," she laughs suddenly, clear and beautiful. He wonders how long it has been since he begun to love her laugh.

"What?"

"You know, how I said I wanted to know what it felt to be loved by you."

He knows. Bittersweet, haunting, the day she died, but please please _please, _she doesn't need to know how he hates the way her voice had tickled at something faint and dead in the back of his mind called vacant memory.

"So?" He rolls his eyes.

"I do now, but I'm not sure whether it was worth it."

She's long gone before he realises what she meant.

**-X-**

"What's wrong with you today?" Damon will sometimes ask, on the days he'll bother to notice, and in the rare moments he'll find time to care.

_I'm insane_. He refrains from saying. The words hover above his mouth, an impending reality sentence waiting to happen. The implication of it all, it just overwhelms him and makes something he thought was long dead and gone in his chest begin to hurt.

"Everything." He says instead, not because it's true, but because Damon will be too distracted to see that it isn't a lie.

_I may be disturbed, but won't you concede?_

Because he can't seriously love a ghost for the rest of his life. No, not can't, _won't._

Something deep down inside wishes that he could.

**-X-**

"You never mourned me." She says sharply. The guilt he feels is almost unbearable. She aims where it hurts most and leaves little left unturned and intact.

"You mourned the loss of a girl who tossed you aside, and you cried for your victims, but not-" the words hang, empty and useless, between them. _You never cried for me._

"I don't think I love you anymore."

This is how you hurt without wounding. You twist meaningful words into something unrecognisable until there is nothing left.

_I loved you once._

"You," her lips twist into something cruel and bitter, "are not _him _anymore."

In his mind's eye he can see the girl she once was, naïve, dared to love, dared to hope, dared to dream.

_Even heroes have the right to dream._

"No, I haven't-I _haven't_-I couldn't possi-" his exclamations fall off dead and numb lips.

"Whatever." he finally whispers in response, which is starting to become a habit, because he doesn't want her to know that _he _knows that she's right. She's always right.

He's never wanted her to be wrong.

**-X-**

The wedding day is the defining moment.

When Caroline, another mistake on his hit list, hurries away, leaving behind the girl who never learned to love properly and who could only be his substitution.

He smiles blankly at Elena, and prays for miracle to save him. He doesn't want to hear about her becoming human, Damon loving her enough to turn when she wouldn't love either of them enough to stay with them for eternity, because he's losing them. His family. He lost them the moment he fell in love with Elena Gilbert.

But suddenly, to his relief, she's there, hovering behind Elena's shoulder as though she's doing him a favour.

"I need to go." He hurries past a confused Elena, hurries into a room and barricades the door.

As always, like a whisper, she's right behind him, always prepared.

"So," she drawls, tucking her head into his shoulder, her hands crawling up his back. It's the first time in a long time she's touched him and somehow he's exhilarated by it.

"Whose heart are you going to break now?"

He opens his mouth, an unknown sentence lolling on his tongue. Whatever he says didn't enough to fill the void he feels without her. "I'm insane." He finally says, looking down at her upturned face.

"That's not answering my question." She smirks coyly, because Katherine always knew how to provoke someone into admitting defeat, and he's surprised that he's surrendering now.

_I loved you once. I think I still do._

The answers there, hovering between them, an unspoken understanding. What rolls off his tongue is not what he expected.

"I can't love a ghost for the rest of my life."

She looks almost heartbroken, as of such an emotion could touch her. She leans forward, lips brushing his ear and sending shivers down his spine in a way only she ever could.

"Who says you have to love me for the rest of your _life_?"

She pulls away. Her abrupt absence stings like vervain on skin.

"I-what-no-I can't-" He looks up and the room is empty, his failed expressions falling silent on his lips, a million words he'll never get to say.

He may have been the one who killed her, but she was the one who lit the flame, he reminds himself, a constant punch to the stomach.

It doesn't make him feel any better.

It just makes him want her more.

**-X-**

In the end, he loses. Falls short on the wrong end of the destiny stick.

Because she is like a magnet, and him a nail; throughout everything he's always attracted to her, and he'll always follow her, wherever she will be.

He leaves a note in his journal, because he knows Damon or Caroline will find it. Maybe they will understand how sorry he is.

It's like she controls him without touching. Controls him walking away from the reception, in the warm, fading sunlight, up a secluded, shady hill, and he knows he doesn't have much time left. She's so close now, he wants to touch her, be with her, be her everything for eternity.

With shaking fingers, he pulls off the ring that's saved him a thousand times, twisting it anxiously between his fingers as he looks out at the life he's leaving behind. There is regret, a lot of it, because he could have become so much more had he not killed Katherine Pierce, and he is leaving a lot behind.

Before he can think twice about it, he drops the ring to the ground and steps into the sun for the final time.

The sun, though slowly disappearing, strikes him with a momentary brilliant warmth and brings a smile to his face, because for a second he sees her, healthy and whole in all her beauty. She dazzles and hurts him, though he knows it's just her love.

By the time his lips finally meet hers, he is nothing but dust and a ring on a hillside, drifting in the wind.

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_I'm only a man who dared to dream._

**Thanks for reading! Sorry it had a sad ending, but it was an angsty story I've wanted to write for steferine because I hate that Katherine's dead, and that Stefan didn't seem to mourn her. Hope you enjoyed it despite that :-)**


	17. Chapter 17

**Request by thisdarkpassenger: **_**Can you do an aftermath of chapter17. Damon and the gang finding out about Stefan,... And Katherine too maybe.**_

**Disclaimer: I don't own tvd, it belongs to Julie Plec and L.J Smith, I am just using the characters and storylines for my own stories.**

**Thanks for those who have been reading and reviewing so far!**

He's nothing but dust and bone when they find him.

Drifting away on the wind, his ring an empty solace on the hillside.

The devastation hits Damon like a tidal wave. Stefan's gone.

_Suicide..._

No. No. He's not, he wouldn't, he can't be. Damon scrabbles wildly for anything, proof that at any moment, Stefan will come wandering up the hill, demanding to know what all the shrieking from Caroline and Bonnie and Elena is all about, but there isn't any. All there is left to hold onto is his daylight ring, an undead promise to remain cursed forever. There is nothing else. Stefan doesn't come back, because he's _dead_.

It _hurts_.

Hurts because when he realised Stefan wasn't at the reception, he couldn't have possibly expected to find him like this. Burned to dust, ashes to ashes.

"...Stefan! Stefan, oh God..."

"Please, no..."

"...terrible..."

"Damon, I'm so sorry..."

Murmerings rush around him, overwhelming. His chest burns, his fangs itch, Stefan's ring digs into his hands, and all of a sudden he can't breathe and his whole body aches with grief because, oh, Stefan, his brother of two hundred years is _dead_.

"Get away." He says hoarsely. He feels a hand on his shoulder and his lungs concave. Elena. "Get away!" He yells, and feels her flinch back as he finally finds room to lurch to his feet.

_Why? _Thunders through Damon's mind, as he stumbles away. Why now? He had been _happy_. Well, almost. His relationship with Caroline was getting back on track, they'd both found out the mother they'd grieved for two centuries was still alive, Damon himself along with Bonnie had returned back to life, so _it doesn't make sense._

_Whywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhywhy..._

Damon can't think of anything else. It pounds through him, in his blood, invades his brain, numbs his body with grief, and he doesn't know where he's going, doesn't know until he walks into a door and finds himself in a small room next to the registry office where Alaric and Jo just spoke their vows. He doesn't know what drew him to this particular room, but he needs the peace and quiet.

He needs to mourn Stefan.

Everything becomes insignificant in those next few minutes. Anyone, anything, _everything _to do with _anything_ else that has _nothing_ to do with Stefan.

His journal sits innocently on the table. Vaguely he remembers Stefan mentioning leaving his journal someplace until after the ceremony, and briefly wonders if he knew Damon would come here and find it. A rage ignites its way through his body and he marches over to it, determined to take his anger out on some part of Stefan that is still left in this world for leaving him, but then he stops. A curiosity blazes through him instead.

He wants to know what his brother's mindset was during these last few weeks. How long he'd been suicidal, what suddenly drove him right over the edge. He wants to know _why._

Damon rips open the book with far more force than necessary, breaking the lock and sending pages scattering to the ground. He snatches them up, stuffing them back into the back of the journal, when two catch his eye. They're long and narrow envelopes that could easily be mistaken for several pieces of paper, but it's not that that strikes Damon's heart.

One of these particular envelopes has his name on it.

In his hurry, he tears it several times before he reaches the paper within that carries his brother's last words, and then holds it gently in his hands, like some sort of treasured possession.

_Damon,_

_I'm sorry. I have to do this. It's not that I don't value the life I've built these last few years, it's just that I'm going insane, insane for her, and I can't stand it anymore. I want her so much it's consuming me alive. I need her. I should never have killed her, her death was by my hand and I hate myself for it. I see her constantly, she haunts me everyday, reminding me what it was to love and be loved by her, and I need to be with her. I hope one day you understand. I hope you all do. I love you._

At first, Damon is bewildered. _Who's the _she? _If it's not Caroline, then who is it? _He stares dumbfounded at the last words of his brother, shaky and barely readable, before he begins to understand.

"Oh, brother." He whispers, clutching the paper to his chest. The tears come then, streaming unashamedly down his face as he grasps the implication of who Stefan Salvatore was.

He thinks he understands his brother now more than he ever has.

**-X-**

He feels raw now. He feels _everything_ more than he has ever felt before, like his brother's absence has seared a gaping hole in his soul that will never heal.

Guilt is one of the first to surface. The guilt that he didn't realise, not once, that Stefan was suffering, when the signs were all there, in plain sight, and more pieces of the story have come together in his mind every day since the tragic wedding that saw him lose his brother forever. Something particular snags at his mind. When Stefan was vacant for what was probably not just his recent Ripper binge.

_"What's wrong with you today?" He asked. Stefan turned to look at him. To his surprise, he looked...empty, almost as though something was sucking the light out of him._

_"Everything." He whispered._

It's only now that Damon knows what he meant.

The worst part was, that even if they found a way to bring Stefan back, he had chosen to kill himself, and so if he was with her, if they had truly found each other, he wouldn't want to come back, and he doesn't know how to accept it, what to even tell other people, let alone himself.

He doesn't know what to make of it. The people standing in front him. Caroline strikes him the most. Her red-rimmed eyes, the grey tinge to her cheeks and the shadows on her face show that she's not taking this well. Of course. She thinks she wasn't enough for him, that he didn't love her, but he did. Damon knows he did. He just so happened to also love a ghost.

"Damon, are you going to tell me what's going on here?" His mother asks sharply. He blinks and returns to reality. She stands the closest in front of him; he had just let her out of her cell, because whilst he's worried that Stefan's death may cause her to rip this town apart, he also knows that _he_ wouldn't like to be told that _his_ son was dead whilst trapped, starved and lonely in a cellar.

"What is it?" Lily asks, still unaware. Damon slowly approaches her, dreading the moment. Because he's not sure if his mother will care or not, and he's not entirely sure if he wants her to. "What's happened?"

Damon keeps walking until he's right in front of her. "Stefan's dead, Lily." He looks squarely into her eyes, those eyes, so much like her children's, widening in horror. "He committed suicide early last night, during the wedding reception."

"What? Why? I thought -" Lily swallows hard, looking more confused and vaguely hurt than anything. "I thought he was happy." Maybe she's upset, but her emotions are caged behind her face. Maybe her friends are the key to unleashing them. It doesn't matter, he doesn't care about that, he cares about what's important. His _brother_ is what's important.

"It's a long story. One that began one hundred and fifty years ago." Damon begins. His voice sounds distant, as though he's underwater. He laughs inwardly. Many a story to tell there as well. This however, is a story he is not just telling her, but telling everyone here. Stefan deserves this, deserves an excuse for ending his life that doesn't invoke pity, but empathy and sympathy.

"He was in love once. She died, or he thought she did. He moved on. She came back. He thought he didn't care anymore. Lots of things mattered more. But then she became human, and, God... she was a survivor through and through, and he tried to help her find peace despite everything that had happened between them, but she did some _horrible _things," he glanced at Elena. "to survive the death she knew was coming to her. And then he killed her in cold blood to save the woman who stole her face, when she stole her body. But he cared, Stefan did, more than anyone I've ever met, and he loved her still. They understood each other, I think, so much more than I or anyone else could ever understand them. He loved her so much that he became insane with the grief of losing her, and the taunting of her memory, and so felt he had to join this woman to be at peace."

This is Stefan's story, his life, his death, _his. _And the girl his world spun around for, even if he didn't always know it.Besides, she had captured his brother's attention, his love, his trust. Damon supposes she deserves some recognition for that as well.

"And that woman was Katherine Pierce."

The silence in the room afterward is so palpable that he could cut it with a knife.

**-X-**

The funeral is on Monday.

It's properly done, with a priest, and closest friends.

No one has anything but nice things to say.

"He was so kind and compassionate towards everyone he met..."

"Not a bad thing to say about anyone..."

"Even when he had endured so much agony, he found it in him to keep going..."

Of course, no one's ever mocked the dead. And yeah, those things might be true, but he wouldn't want that. He had killed, and loved every second of it, and spent the rest of his eternal life feeling guilty about it, feeling like he didn't deserve to live, and _that _Damon feels, Stefan would want to be recognised for. For being good despite being bad.

Caroline is the next to stand up, red-eyed and stoic, because this is all too fresh in her mind. They all agreed they would say some sort of eulogy in his memory, and it was an unspoken agreement that Damon would perform a longer speech, the proper one, in a way.

"The first thing I think I should say about Stefan is that he was not a saint. Not like everyone believed. Yeah, he had good intentions, and a good heart, compassionate and kind, but that was because he struggled so hard with the person he was deep down. But he didn't let it define him. And he always did what he thought was right by everyone else. I loved him for that. But, he never did it for himself, and so he was never truly happy. And, leaving this world was the right thing to do for himself."

Caroline steps down from the podium, as Damon stands up, again reminiscent of another day, another dark time, but this time he hugs her. Because what she said was what he would have wanted to hear. The truth. "He loved you too, you know. He just couldn't stop running from the past anymore. Just know that." Damon whispers into her ear.

Caroline pulls away and smiles sadly. "I know." She whispers.

Damon steps up onto the podium and holds his speech tight in his hand, Stefan's letter enfolded in the other. He can almost feel him, his brother, standing next to him, can see him from the corner of his eye, watching, waiting.

Taking a deep breath, he begins. "I never really understood Stefan in the years he had been my brother. Why he was so self-sacrificing, why he bothered to forgive me for every terrible thing I've done to ruin his life all for trapping me in one that I now can't imagine not living. But, uh," he swallows nervously. "when I saw him, his ring on that hill, I realised that the reason he did all that for me, is because he understood me. More than anyone. And I'll never be more grateful for that, because he knew how to be my brother. And no, he wasn't a good person, or a saint like people believed, but he tried to be, and he was a good brother, and that's what matters. He saved me, kept me going for years, and now, I hope he's found something to keep him going too."

He turns to look at the vase containing Stefan's remains. "Goodbye, Stefan." He closes his eyes to regain control of himself, then steps down, hurrying back to his seat. Elena grabs his hand, but Damon doesn't really care, or notice. The service continues, a distant sound to his ears. He pulls out Stefan's letter, to bide the time, to feel close to him again when something else falls out.

The last envelope to Caroline. He'd almost forgotten all about it, but he feels it'll do good now. After the service, he hands it over to Caroline, who stares at it, and then him, blankly.

"There were only two of those. The first he gave to me. So there's your proof that he loved you. Enough to let you go."

The priest takes the vase containing what of Stefan's ashes they found, preparing to head out into the cemetery, when Damon stops him.

"I - I want to carry it. Out to my family crypt."

He doesn't even need to compel him. Ah, well. Pity. It's a bitch that can come in handy.

He takes the vase, looks at it, and everyone around him: Elena, Caroline, Matt, Tyler, Bonnie, Jeremy, Alaric, Jo, his mother. All standing there, stoic-eyed and silent.

Wrapping his hands tightly around his brother's remains, he heads off, walking determinedly down the hill, towards the crypt. He doesn't even have to look behind him to know that everyone else is following behind. The building looms up in front of him, overwhelming and desolate, and he recalls coming to this very spot to see Stefan after his return, and now a tiny part of him can't help but hope that maybe Stefan is sitting in there. Or maybe, if he waits long enough, Stefan will return himself and visit him. He opens the door and steps carefully inside, as though the fragility of the building depends on his footsteps.

Stefan isn't there.

It catches up to him, the pain, swift and unforgiving, and it strikes him so deep in his heart that he can't escape.

He places the urn on a bench with shaking fingers, and then the crying starts. He breaks down, completely and utterly all at once because the acceptance and finality that Stefan cannot be saved, will not come back to him has finally bowed him down onto his knees, and when it's all over and done, Damon finds himself slumping to the floor, body shaking with wracking sobs of agony.

_Brother..._

It's pain, and rage, and fire, and for a long time, he sits there, shaking, until it's all gone, and only one thought remains.

_I wish you'd taken me with you._

**-X-**

There is fire.

She remembers that clearly. The dark fire, and how it _burns_.

It's not something she could forget so easily, and it's not exactly like she could, because she's all alone.

She's alone and she's here forever, trapped, and she can't help but know that it's all her fault, but deep down inside her there is a young girl called Katerina Petrova who could have brought her to heaven and saved her from hell.

Sometimes she dreams of her. That little girl, who lost a battle against her treacherous family, and who waged a war against a psychotic hybrid that won't ever end, even now, when she is no longer a living participant. She sees things, wisps of desire, hopes and wishes long gone past, but most of all, she sees the love of her life.

Stefan Salvatore.

She dreams of his conflictions, his fears, his life. She sees him mourn for Damon. She sees him fall for Caroline Forbes. She sees his mother and Damon's miraculous return. She sees him topple over the edge again. And she is with him through every single part of it.

She sees him go insane for her. Literally.

Though there are parts where she is vacant. Absent from his life, where darkness hollows her soul, and she feels lost to the abyss again. She eventually claws her way back, kicking and screaming with pure defiance, but at the cost of time itself.

It takes her longer every time to come back to him.

It tears him apart, she knows. The decision, to leave her or them. He needs them all in his life, but she needs him here.

So, she pushes him. _Be with me. Don't love a ghost for the rest of your life. Love me for eternity._

She watches him choose. It's an agonising sight, because she fears that she will never see him again, that he will shut her out from the recesses of his mind for eternity and she will be alone again. She watches him leave the wedding party as the sun goes down, but can't see anything more. Because the darkness, it clouds her judgement and drags her away, from this person who has always been more than the person she expected him to be, and then steals her hope from her.

_No! _Her mind screams. _Give him back to me! _Katherine can't mourn a man she doesn't know the fate of. She can't escape grief for a man she can never stop loving. "Give him back to me!" She shrieks hysterically. She has long since lost the ability to cry tears, but she sobs dryly anyway.

"I wasn't expecting you to be so possessive." A wry voice says behind her. She whirls around, and smiles when she sees him. The hysteria calms. She goes over and hugs him, feeling the solidness of his body under hers, reuniting with the joy of having a companion in solitude and relishing in his scent.

"Oh, God, I couldn't see you. I thought -" her throat closes up. _I thought you left me._

"I don't know how long I've been here." He whispers into her hair. "I couldn't find you, I thought it had been for nothing, and I was scared I had lost you forever."

She pulls back and touches his face. Cold and smooth, just like she remembers. "I'm here now. Where did you go? You must have been wandering around here for days."

He looks upset, she realises. He has tears in his eyes that have yet to fade away. "I went to the funeral at first." He says, and then he swallows. "Just to see who was there. It was nice. But everyone had nice things to say. I didn't want nice. My brother knew that. He wasn't nice, he was wonderful." His voice cracks slightly, and suddenly she recognises the pull she has on him, understands what he left behind for a tiny, insignificant chance of finding her.

"Thank you for giving him up for me." She whispers, pulling on his jacket. She kisses him, and for a moment she sees the people they could have become had he not killed her, and had she not abandoned him, but it is insignificant now.

"Katherine." He mutters, as he kisses her again. She smiles into his lips, sighing with relief. He loves her, and in return her love for him obliterates and consumes her with wild, passionate sanity. He chose her. He chose to leave his life behind to find her in hell itself. Now they are here, together, for eternity. Now they can watch life and death pass by _together_.

She isn't so alone anymore.

**The next update should be quicker. Thanks for reading. And thanks again for all the reviews so far, they've been really supporting, please, keep them coming! And feel free to drop in or PM any suggestions. :-)**


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